Audrey Weasley
by RodentFace
Summary: Why did Percy come back in the end of The Deathly Hallows? A story that not only answers why, but also introduces Percy's true love: Audrey!
1. Hermione Granger

Disclaimer: The story of Percy's redemption is NOT in the books. It is on this site. Therefore, I don't own Harry Potter.

His first thought was Hermione Granger.

As Percy Weasley walked past the long line of Muggleborns on their way to be questioned, he could only think of Hermione Granger. He'd gotten along pretty well with her for the short time when he'd known her, but that wasn't why he was thinking of her.

He thought of her because of Ron. While most people wouldn't have thought that Percy would have paid attention to things like that, Percy had noticed how Ron always sat up a little straighter when Hermione was around and how his eyes lit up when she was mentioned. He would always blush and insist that they were only friends when anyone suggested otherwise, but Percy knew better. Eventually, his little brother and his best friend would have to face facts; they were meant for each other.

This is why Percy thought of Hermione Granger when he saw the Muggle-borns who were in for questioning. All of them had stories like Hermione. They were husbands, wives, parents, friends, children, and everything else imaginable. He knew that Ron would have been heart-broken if Hermione were in that line and so were the friends and family of the people standing there, terrified. They were all real people and what was happening to them was just sick. There was nothing else to say about it. Except that Percy couldn't do anything about it.


	2. The Escape

Disclaimer: I would not have had to keep checking The Deathly Hallows to make sure that I got all my facts right if I owned Harry Potter. If I owned Harry Potter, I would already know this stuff. Clearly, I don't.

Muggle-borns were Disapparating left and right. Those who didn't have wands held onto those who did while some tried to find their family. Percy Weasley rushed to the scene, both horrified and relieved. Many of them wouldn't make it out safely, but those who did manage to escape would be free. He tried to appear as though he were trying to stop them from escaping, though he was really trying to help them get out before they were caught. "What are you doing!" he nearly shouted at a girl who looked close to his age. "Get out of here!"

"I can't!" she shouted frantically. "My parents! My little brother! I don't know where they are!"

He took a deep breath. He then made a split second decisions that would change his life permanently. He grabbed a scrap of parchment and a quill from his pocket, scribbled down an address and thrust it at her. "Go there. I'll find you family. What are their names?"

She stopped and stared at him. "How do I know that I can trust you?"

"You don't, but what other choice do you have?" he asked. "What are their names?"

"Simons. Robert, Veronica, and Joey, but I…." she started, but Percy cut her off.

"Just go! GO!" With one last fearful look, the girl Disapparated with a _pop!_

Finally, the chaos called down. Percy had stunned himself so that it looked as though he'd got injured in the confusion and not as though he'd been helping Muggle-borns escape. Finally, he was found by Travers who put him right and helped him to his feet. "You alright?" he asked.

"Fine," Percy said gruffly, wiping some dust of his robes. "Did we catch any?" he tried to sound hopeful, though doubtful.

"No," Travers sighed, "but that's not what has everyone worried. They found Mafalda Hopkirk stunned in an alley a couple blocks away. Looked like she'd been there all morning. She was also wearing different clothes."

"Why's that troublesome?" Percy asked, confused. "Other than the fact that she'd been clearly attacked, of course."

"Well, she'd been helping the Mudbloods escape, hasn't she? Looks like someone was impersonating her. They think the same has happened to Runcorn. When they tried to find him, they found him at home with the worst nosebleed I'd ever seen. With that much blood loss, he'd have to have been there all morning. Someone tried to break into the Ministry," Travers sighed.

Percy looked alarmed. This time he wasn't faking it. "Someone broke into the Ministry? Is that even possible?"

"Apparently it is," Travers said dryly. "We need to get back to work."

XXX

"Weasley. What are you doing with this lot?" Runcorn asked Percy, curiously. He stared at the three people behind him.

"Yaxley wanted me to bring them to him for _questioning_," Percy said putting an emphasis on the word "questioning."

"Ah," Runcorn's eyes lit up. "He doesn't need any help, does he?"

"No, he said that he would tend to them himself," Percy said firmly. "If you'll excuse me, Yaxley will be getting impatient." He gave Runcorn a curt nod and shoved the three people forward.

The woman in the group began sobbing. Percy shot her a sharp look and the boy began shaking. The man tried as hard as he possibly could to not cry, but he too, had watery eyes.

Once the four of them were alone, Percy took the boy and the man's hands (the woman was gripping her husband's arm tightly and sobbing into his shoulder) and Disapparated.


	3. The Beginning

Author's Note: And the story picks up!

Disclaimer: Do I really need to say it?

"_MUM! DAD! JOEY! _Joey? JOEY!" Audrey shouted. She'd been sitting the living room of a falling-apart cottage when four figures had appeared in the distance. She'd run toward them once she realized who they were, but immediately saw that something was terribly wrong. Her brother had collapsed the moment that Audrey heard the _pop_ while the other three tried to support him. "What happened?" she gasped as soon as she saw them. Blood poured out of her brother's head and he seemed to have fainted.

"Splinched," the red-haired man who'd helped her earlier said, wide-eyed. "Let's get him inside." He muttered something and Audrey's brother (as though on a stretcher) floated toward the cottage.

XXX

"Will he be alright?" Audrey asked worried.

"Yes," the red-haired man answered. "He didn't lose _too _much blood and I got to him right away…I shudder to think of what would have happened if we'd waited any longer…" He fell silent.

Audrey stared at the wooden floor for a moment then asked, "Who are you?"

"Percy Weasley," he answered promptly. "It's Audrey, isn't it?

"Ye…..How'd you know that?" she asked suspiciously.

"You were in my year at Hogwarts, weren't you?" he asked pleasantly.

Her eyes narrowed again then she began to remember. "You're that really annoying Head Boy? That was _you?_" If he hadn't told her, she never would have guessed that it was him. For one, he seemed to have aged much more than the four years since she last saw him, though she supposed that the war did that to everyone. He also seemed much sadder and less stiff. He still seemed to have that serious demeanor, but now it was less about rule-breaking and now because of what he'd seen and been through. Finally, he was _much _better-looking than the Percy Weasley she remembered. There was no chance in her ever saying this out loud, but it was exactly what she was thinking.

He grinned slightly. "I suppose so. Was I really that bad?"

"Oh, yeah!" she said and for a moment, just a moment, it was like there was no war. She had just run into an old classmate and they were beginning to catch up. Then she remembered that he'd just saved her entire family from most likely being killed by the Death Eaters and that they were all still in danger. "Thanks for helping us," she said.

"What choice did I have?" he asked calmly.

Audrey surveyed him for a moment, but didn't say anything.

XXX

Percy and Audrey walked back into the room just as Joey's eyes were opening slightly. Audrey rushed over to him, but Percy just stood in the doorway, unsure of what to do.

"Wh-what happened?" Joey asked.

"You Splinched," Audrey said quietly. "It's when you get injured when Apparating," she added that the confused look on his face.

"Oh." He groaned. "What are we doing here?"

"This is where Percy told me to go," she shrugged and turned back to him. "Where are we, anyway?"

"My great-great-uncle Ignatius lived here. He died about two years ago and he left me this property," he said. "I've been fixing up this cottage. It was the first place of which I thought." Audrey almost laughed. Apparently, Percy still was a stickler for grammar.

"So, now what?" Audrey asked. "Shouldn't you be at work anyway?"

He shook his head. "No, I just got off work. I got your parents and family just after my shift ended."

Audrey nodded while her parents continued to look frightened. "What's going on?" her mother finally managed.

"Someone broke into the Ministry of Magic," Percy explained before Audrey could even open her mouth. "I don't know who or how they managed, but they helped around fifty muggle-borns escape."

Audrey nodded and continued, "It was completely chaotic! People kept Apparating to help out or Disapparating to escape. Only about half of the Muggle-borns there had wands so the ones who didn't were trying to find someone who did so that they could get out. I couldn't find you so I couldn't leave. Percy told me to come here and that he'd meet me here."

Percy nodded. "I'm sorry about the way I treated you earlier, but if I didn't, it would have looked suspicious." He politely held out a hand, but Mr. and Mrs. Simons continued to looked at him as though he would suddenly grow fangs. Finally, Mr. Simons reached out and shook Percy's hand. He dropped it very soon afterward.

Percy nodded at him and turned to Audrey. "To answer your earlier question, I have no idea what you're going to do next. You need to go into hiding. I suggest that you go abroad. Do you have any friends or family outside Brittan?"

Audrey shook her head. "No, but how would we get there anyway? Side-along Apparation would work great except that my parents and Joey are muggles! I'm surprised that nothing worse happened when you brought them here."

"You could always use Muggle transportation. You could use those…..what are they called? They fly and people ride in them….My dad spends his spare time trying to figure out how they work…"

"Airplanes?" Audrey supplied for him, amused that he had such trouble with the name.

"That's it! You could always use an airplane," he said rather lamely and once again, Audrey felt the urge to laugh.

"We don't have any money," Audrey pointed out. "They 'summoned' us before we had a chance to grab anything, not that we thought it would have helped," she added bitterly.

Percy thought for a moment, then finally asked, "Do you want to stay here?"

There was a moment of silence only broken by Joey's occasional groans of pain. Finally, Audrey said, "We couldn't do that! I mean, do you know what kind of trouble that would put you in?"

"Yes, but I also know that _you'd_ be in worse trouble if you _didn't _stay here," he replied. "Look, you're the only one who can Apparate and Joey's injured. This was my great-great-uncle's house and that would be a good cover for why I'm here so often. No, look," he said at the defiant look on her face, "This was my great-great-uncle's place. I was looking through some papers about our family earlier today and according to them, my uncle isn't dead yet. I'm guessing that someone didn't turn in their report or something, but as far as the Ministry's concerned, he's still alive. He wanted to be cremated, so there's no grave to prove otherwise. You could pretend to be him," Percy addressed Mr. Simons when he said this. "He had lots of friends. You two could be some friends of his that came to live with him when he couldn't take care of himself," he said to Audrey and Mrs. Simons.

"What about me?" Joey asked. He tried to sit up, but lay back down immediately and Audrey looked at him worried.

"You're Hogwarts age," Percy said. "I don't know. If the Ministry came to see if my story was true, you're the only problem we would have."

"If we're going to make my father look like an old man, why can't we make Joey look a few years older? He could pull off being an adult height-wise," Audrey suggested.

"When my uncle died, he was so old that he couldn't do magic anymore. That happens often. That could be our excuse for your parents, but we couldn't do the same for Joey," Percy pointed out.

"Do we get to say anything about this?" Mrs. Simons asked weakly. It was then that Audrey and Percy remembered that they were in the room. "It's very nice of you to offer to hide us, Mr…?"

"Weasley," Percy answered, "but, please, call me Percy."

"Yes, well, it's kind of you to offer to hide us, Mr. Weasley," she said disregarding what he said about using his given name, "but we couldn't do that. We can't put you in danger like this. You don't need to worry about a family when….." Percy cut her off.

"And I can't let you go without knowing that you'll be safe. I know that I'll be in danger if I let you hide here, but I know that you'll be in ever worse danger if I _don't _hide you here," he said this as though it settled the matter.

"How do we even know that we can trust you?" Mr. Simons asked, suspiciously. "How do we know that this isn't a trap?"

"Do you have any information that would hurt or help the Ministry?" Percy asked.

"No."

"Have you done anything that would threaten the Ministry other than existing?"

"No."

"Can you think of any reason why they would single you out from all the other muggle-born families who escaped today?"

"No!" Mr. Simons snapped, impatiently.

"Then why would this be a trap?" Percy asked patiently.

Mr. Simons continued to look at him suspiciously, then finally said, "You'd make a good politician, son."

Percy tried not to smile when he said, "Good, then we're going to need to work on disguises…"

"We can't stay here!" Mrs. Simons protested then Joey spoke up.

"May I _please_ say something!" he shouted.

"No, you're fourteen," Audrey said and she turned away to speak with Percy again, but Joey ignored her.

"What I was about to say was," he shot Audrey a glare, "that I just don't want to do that….Apparating thing again. Audrey said that it could have been much worse since I'm not a wizard."

The four adults in the room shared glance then finally Percy said, "Should we work on disguises now?"


	4. Disguises

Author's Note: Hey, sorry it took me forever to post the next chapter. My computer is doing something weird, but the chapter's finished now! Yay!

Disclaimer: In the time it took me to sort out my computer issues, J. K. Rowling did _not _give me the rights to Harry Potter so sadly, I _still _do not own Harry Potter. (grumbles) _Stupid J. K. Rowling._

"I guess we should," Audrey said, looking annoyed. It seemed that Joey (she'd have to get back at him later) had made the final decision on the matter. "What do we need to do?"

"First of all," Percy addressed Mr. Simons, "you're going to need to look like an old Weasley." He set to work turning Mr. Simons' hair red. He didn't really need to make him taller as he, Audrey, and Joey were all rather tall. Percy spent about two hours making Mr. Simons appear to be around 100. Once Percy was finished, Mr. Simons was unrecognizable.

Before anyone else's appearances could be changed, they had to create new lives for themselves. Mrs. Simons became Vivian Turner, an old friend of Ignatius', who had come to live with him when he became too frail to care for himself. She too, was too old to perform magic. Audrey was Mrs. Turner's granddaughter, Lucy, who had moved in with her to help care for Ignatius Weasley. Joey's story was the hardest to create. He was to be Audrey/Lucy's brother. While he might have been able to pull off being an adult, there was still the question as to why he was unable to do magic. It was finally decided that he was one of the unfortunate wizards who had his magic (and wand) stolen from a muggle.

"But that's not even possible!" Audrey protested. "That's just what the Ministry says so that they can go after Muggle-borns."

"_I _know that and _you _know that and the _Ministry _knows that, but what can they do about it?" Percy pointed out. "If they're going to claim that all Muggle-borns 'stole' magic from a witch or wizard, where are all these witches and wizards who'd had their magic stolen? We're only supporting their claim by saying this, that is, if we're caught, which we won't be."

Audrey scowled. "This won't work. I know it won't. They won't be able to contradict you because then they'd be admitting that they were lying, but they'll know that you're lying too. They'll find _some _way to arrest you for it."

"Do you have any better ideas?" Percy asked her. When she remained silent, he said, "Exactly." She scowled at him, but said nothing. She turn on her heel quickly (which caused her long brown hair to nearly hit Percy in the face) and stomped over to see how Joey was doing.

"Couldn't you just say that he's a Squib?" she finally asked.

"We could, but the Ministry is pretty anti-Squib as well as anti-Muggle-born at the moment," he sighed. "Let's just not get caught."

Percy set to work on Joey's appearance. Once Percy was finished, Joey looked at around five years older and his hair was so dark brown that it was almost black.

Audrey got started on her mother's appearance (Mrs. Simons/Mrs. Turner still didn't really trust Percy) which was more work than she expected. The Human Transfiguration spell was not at all the problem, but her mother's attitude toward the situation was. Her mother simply didn't want to look older than she already did. Audrey finally managed to convince her to follow through with the plan and had much fun changing her mother's appearance. "When you're actually this age," she said once she was finished, "you'd be very lucky to look this good." She handed Mrs. Turner a mirror. "What do you think?"

Mrs. Turner ran a few fingers through her dark gray curls. She looked up at Audrey and nodded.

Audrey smiled and got to work on her one appearance. Percy (with much regret) was the one who had to tell her that she needed to cut her hair. "They know what you look like," he said, sadly.

She held a lock of brown hair out so that she could look at it closely and sighed, "I guess." Her hair had been shoulder-length for a while, but decided that it would be good to have some change. Rather than merely trimming her hair or simply layering it as everyone expected, it was chin-length before anyone could offer a suggestion. Next, she layered it.

"What color should I have?" she asked no one in particular.

"Black?" Ignatius Weasley/Mr. Simons offered.

Audrey tapped her wand against her hair which immediately turned black and shook her head. "No, it's not my color." She tried red. "I could be your sister, Percy," she joked, not noticing the melancholy look on his face when she'd said the word "sister." After trying multiple shades of brown, white-blonde ("That looks terrible!" Audrey shouted.), gold, strawberry blonde, auburn, and (for the fun of it) green, Percy finally stepped in to help.

"Here, try this," he tapped his own wand on her hair turning it a color between dirty blonde and light brown.

Audrey viewed it from different sides with a critical eye and finally smiled. "I like it. It looks natural."

"It brings out your eyes," Percy said before he could stop himself. There was a slightly awkward silence broken finally by Percy who said, "If it looks like your natural hair color, you don't look like you're in disguise. You're more believable."

"Where are we from?" Joey (who was now to be called Artie) asked.

Percy turned toward him. "What?"

"Where are we from? Won't the….Ministry or whatever have tabs on everyone from Brittan? Where are we saying we're from?" he asked.

Were Percy not so proper, he probably would have sworn at his own stupidity. How had he not thought of that? "Australia," he said. "I can't believe that I forgot about that. Good thinking," he directed this last part to Joey/Artie.

"Thanks," he grunted.

"Let's review," Percy said. He turned to Mr. Simons, "You're Ignatius Weasley. I'm your favorite great-great-nephew and I'm helping taking care of you in your old age." Mr. Simons nodded. Percy turned toward Mrs. Simons. "You're Mrs. Turner. Your husband died a few years ago. Let's say, five. You're an old friend of Ignatius' and you've come to help take care of him." She nodded and Percy turned toward Audrey. "You're Lucy Turner, Mrs. Turner's granddaughter. You're also caring for Ignatius." Audrey gave a curt nod and Percy turned toward Joey. "Artie Turner. Mrs. Turner's grandson, Audrey's brother."

"Squib," Joey said before Percy could continue. "We'll add the part about having my magic stolen only if we really have to."

Percy looked uncomfortable, but nodded.

"Well, I suppose that's it then," Audrey said. "No point in just standing around. I take it Ignatius had a library?" she asked Percy.

"Upstairs," Percy added and he watched Audrey hurry out of the room.


	5. Obliviate

"Obliviate," Percy said clearly, pointing his wand at Runcorn. Runcorn's eyes spun in odd directions for a moment, then they refocused once again. "Good morning," Percy said pleasantly.

"Morning, Weasley," Runcorn grunted.

"Are you feeling alright?" Percy asked concerned. "You don't look well."

"Lot on my mind. You know, being impersonated yesterday when all those mudbloods escaped."

"I understand," Percy nodded.

"Know what's worse?" Runcorn asked. "They had some Muggles. The family of one of those mudbloods and they disappeared."

"They got away with the muggle-borns?" Percy asked sounding curious.

"Naw, they got away hours later. They were being guarded one moment then about a half an hour later, they were gone. No one knows where they went," he heaved a sigh.

"Any idea what happened to them?" Percy asked, trying to keep the worry out of his voice.

"No, I think that Yaxley had something to do with it…" his voice trailed off. "Though, I can't remember why…"

"Was Yaxley guarding the Muggles?" Percy asked as though figuring out a word to a crossword puzzle with which a friend was having trouble.

"No, it was a couple of kids. Just otta Hogwarts. Can't remember their names. But it wasn't Yaxley," Runcorn made a face. "Why do I think that Yaxley had something to do with it?"

"I don't know," Percy mused. "Obliviate." He pointed his wand at Runcorn once again. Runcorn's eyes spun in odd directions again and once again, refocused. "Now, what was that you were saying?"

"Couple of Muggles disappeared. Can't figure out where they went or how they got out," Runcorn rubbed the side of his head. "I'm really not feeling well," he grunted.

"Here," Percy opened his desk and handed him an over-the-counter potion for headaches. "This should help you." Runcorn looked at the bottle and swallowed the entire bottle in one gulp. "And you don't have any idea how the Muggles could have escaped?" Percy asked, interested.

"No," Runcorn said, making a face. "That's disgusting. What is that?"

"Just a headache potion," Percy shrugged. "Sorry, I never bought the flavored kind. Does anybody know _anything _about the escaped Muggles?"

"No. Why are you so interested?" Runcorn gave Percy a strange look.

"No reason. I just like order and don't want Muggles and Muggle-borns running around all over the place," Percy said.

"Who does?" Runcorn laughed and Percy forced himself to join in. "Well, I won't keep you. You've probably got a lot of work to do."

"There's always paperwork to do," Percy nodded and as he watched Runcorn walk off, he tried to keep from glaring at him.

XXX

Percy came back to Ignatius' cottage to see Joey reading a Muggle novel and to see Audrey carving something long and thin, almost like a wand. "What are you doing?" he asked her just as she sliced it down the middle with a severing charm.

"They know that my wand is elm wood and unicorn hair," Audrey answered, not looking up at him as she measured the bottom end of her wand. "I'm making a maple cover for my wand. It'll be harder for them to prove that it's me." She hollowed out one of the halves of the maple stick so that the shell was barely half a centimeter thick. She did the same with the second half then put her wand in the one of the halves and closed the second half on top of her wand. "D'you mind?" she asked.

Percy blink, startled and it took him a moment for him to realize what she was talking about. "Oh, right. Reparo," he tapped his wand on her wand's new cover. The two halves seamlessly came together. While it was thicker than the average wand, it was impossible to say that it was once a different wand. Audrey smile proudly and picked up her "new" wand.

"Lumos," she said clearly. A dim light appeared at the end of her wand and Audrey made a face. "Lumos!" she said a little louder. A brighter light appeared and Audrey sighed. "I suppose that means no more nonverbal spells."

Percy unsure of what to say blinked a few times and turned to Joey to ask him about the book he was reading.


	6. Personal Effects

"How long are we supposed to wear these clothes?" Joey asked the next morning. "I mean, I've been wearing these for two days. I've _slept_ in these! And frankly, I smell bad!"

"Joey!" Audrey shot him a sharp look. "We're lucky to be alive! But I guess when I think about it, you're wearing _dirty clothes_. This could be really serious."

"Audrey," her mother shot her a look similar to the one she'd given Joey.

"Well," Percy said slowly, "I don't think that the Ministry would have gone through your house….not with all the other things that they've been worrying about….."

"I'll go," Audrey interrupted. "One of us needs to stay here with my family in case the Ministry finds out where we're hiding."

"So _I'll_ go to your house and you can stay here with you family," Percy contradicted. "You shouldn't leave whereas the Ministry isn't suspicious of me so I'm free to come and go as I please."

"And we ought to keep it that way!" Audrey said, her voice rising. "If one of us gets caught, a Muggle-born going back to her house to retrieve some personal effects is much less suspicious than a Ministry Official going where he shouldn't. Oh, and by the way, thank you for reminding me of the fact that the Ministry isn't after you!"

"And what if you're caught?" Percy asked.

"Then I'm caught! They'll have no proof about you or my family. If they catch you, they'll search your apartment, this cottage, not to mention your family's house!" she retorted.

Percy was about to say something, but when she said "your family's house," he closed his mouth and took a deep breath. "It's safer if I go."

He stood to leave, but Audrey had one more thing to say. "Good luck finding my house."

He stopped in the doorway and turned to face her. "What do you mean?"

"I've always been pretty good at protection charms. Unless you already know where my house was, your chances of ever finding it are unlikely," she smiled smugly, but didn't meet his eyes.

"Then how'd the Ministry find you and take you in for questioning?" Percy asked suspiciously.

"They already knew where I lived. They had me down since I was eleven, remember?" she raised her eyebrows challengingly. "I put the charms on my house ever since You-Know-Who came back. I suppose the Ministry just had me down because I lived around Muggles."

Percy looked torn and Audrey looked up at him interested in what he would say next. "Fine. On your head be it."

Audrey stood up, smiled brightly, and hurried out the door. Percy watched as she Disapperated once she was finally out of the charm's borders.

"She's just like her mother," Mr. Simons said. "Stubborn. I learned a long time ago that it's best to just agree with her. You're never going to win anyway."

Mrs. Simons scowled at him, but said nothing.

"Um, I'll keep that in mind, sir," Percy said, a little confused. Joey smirked and Mr. and Mrs. Simons gave him knowing looks.

XXX

Audrey took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of the house she'd lived in for almost her entire life. Until she was eleven, she'd never noticed that her house had a scent; she learned that it was homey and welcoming. She'd always believed that her house was scentless, and then she'd come home from Hogwarts over the Christmas holidays. While she loved Hogwarts, she always looked forward to coming home, sometimes just to inhale its scent if nothing else. No matter how many friends she had at Hogwarts, they could never make up for her family.

She knew that it wasn't safe to stay long, but Audrey found herself wandering about the house just reminiscing on all the things that had happened in the house when she was younger. She didn't know how long she just stared at the kitchen table remembering when she was eight and she helped her mother bake her birthday cake. She spent even more time sitting in her father's favorite chair in the living room. Finally, remembering why she was there, Audrey went through the house, sending her families personal effects back to Ignatius Weasley's cottage. After sending back all the photo albums, her family's clothes, several books, and various other items that her family would like to keep, Audrey slowly entered her room.

She sent her clothes back quickly so that she could have more time to say goodbye to her room. Audrey picked up the homemade quilt off her bad and smiled sadly. She and her grandmother had made this about a year before Joey was born. Her pillowcase was covered in signatures doodles of the girls who shared her dorm at Hogwarts. As they had gotten older, her friends had started charming their signatures and drawings to move and/or change colors. Audrey looked up at the picture hanging just above her dresser. It was of her seven-year-old self holding up her new baby brother.

Audrey stood up and sighed. She took the picture and stuck it in her pocket. After sending her favorite books (not that she really needed to; Ignatius' library was filled with many, many wizard novels that she'd never read) back to the cottage, Audrey looked at her quilt and pillowcase. She would take the quilt, no doubt, it was the pillowcase that she was worried about. It had the signatures of all her dorm mates at Hogwarts, but it did not have her own. It would be a dead give-away of who she was if she was caught with it; all anybody had to do was look up the Gryffindor girls of that year to see who the missing girl was. After looking at it apprehensively once more, Audrey folded it up with her quilt and hurried back downstairs.

Audrey stepped out the doorway, but stepped back in immediately. This was most likely the last time that she would ever set foot in this house. Looking back in the living room, Audrey whispered, "Goodbye house," before hurrying outside to Apparate back to the cottage.

XXX

It was only fifteen minutes before Percy regretted his decision of letting Audrey go back to her house. He paced the living room anxiously, not noticing the amused looks he was receiving from Audrey's family.

After half an hour, her family began to grow nervous as well. Where was she? Had she been caught? Should he go after her?

After an hour, Percy was deeply considering trying to find her, but he didn't know where she was, and if this was a trap, he'd only be leaving her family unprotected.

Finally, after an hour and a half, stuff began appearing in the living room. Clothes, books, photo albums, and other items kept popping up, all mixed together with what seemed to be no sense of organization; this calmed him down. When the objects began to appear, he knew that Audrey had to have been safely at her house.

After about two hours of being gone, Audrey appeared outside the borders of the charm around the cottage. She had something in her arms: a bundle maybe. She hurried over to the house and nearly ran into Percy who stepped out of the cottage in only two large steps.

"What took you so long!" he nearly shouted.

Audrey raised her eyebrows. "It's good to see you too."

"Two hours! You could have gotten caught! I should have gone instead of you! What was I thinking!" Percy blustered.

"And here I thought that you didn't care," Audrey said sarcastically. "I didn't know that you would be so worried. And if it's really that important," her eyes narrowed dangerously, "I was saying goodbye to the house. I'll probably never be there again, you know."

"Are you saying that you took _two hours _because you were feeling nostalgic?" Percy asked looking furious.

"You know," she took a step toward him, glowering, "you are the _only _person I know who would use that big of a word when angry." With that, she spun on her heel and stalked off.


	7. Photo Albums

"Oh, that was a terrible haircut!" Audrey said disgusted. "I can't believe I _actually wanted _to get my hair done that way."

"It was in style," her mother pointed out, "and you were six."

"True," Audrey agreed, "oh, look!" She pointed at a picture of a small, red newborn. "Joey, it's you before you learned to talk and I actually liked you!"

Joey scowled at her and said, "And here's a picture of you when you were still nice to me. I suppose that awful haircut was humbling for you."

Before she could retort, Percy walked in and asked, "What are you doing?"

"Going through old photo albums," Mrs. Simons answered. "Would you like to see?"

Rather than looking mildly interested, Percy looked alarmed. "You brought _photo albums_ back from your house?" he rounded on Audrey.

"Yes," she said coolly, looking up at him. Ever since she'd gotten back from the house where's she'd grown up, she and Percy had been very cold to each other. Her family was expecting a shouting match sooner or later. "Why do you ask?"

"What's wrong with her bringing back photo albums?" Joey asked, confused.

Percy's expression softened when he turned to Joey. "If the Ministry comes here and sees the photo albums, they'll see who's in them and it'll be pretty obvious why we have them."

"Ah," Joey said understanding and Audrey cut in.

"But I've already thought of that!" she stood up.

"Have you?" Percy asked challengingly.

"Of course!" and snapped and Percy could have sworn that he heard her grumble, "How stupid do you think I am?" She picked up an album from the stack. "You and I both see a photo album. Everyone else sees a cookbook." She picked up another one. "This one is Hogwarts: a History." She picked up yet another one, "This is a novel by a popular author, Richard Taylor, who died, I believe, nine years ago? And _this _one….."

"I understand," Percy said, cutting her off. Rather than looking offended, she looked rather smug which only made Percy more annoyed with her. He never would have thought of charming the photo albums to look like ordinary books. "What if someone from the Ministry comes and asks you about them? How would you remember which one is a cookbook and a novel?"

She smugly held up the "cookbook" so that he could see the back cover. In large letters, she'd written "COOKBOOK" with an ink-pen. "As long as I can see the back cover, I'm fine."

Now Percy was furious. Not only was she playing a dangerous game by bringing the photo albums here, she was also winning. And Percy Weasley did not enjoy losing.

In an attempt to keep the peace, Mrs. Simons asked, "Percy, would you like to look at some albums with us?"

After a few minutes of listening of Mrs. Simons go on about how cute Audrey and Joey were as children and Joey and Audrey making snide comments to each other, Percy said, "It's just so strange that they stay still."

Mrs. Simons and Joey gave him a strange look and Audrey explained to them, "Wizard photos move."

"Like movies?" Joey asked.

"Movies?" Percy raised an eyebrow.

"Not quite," Audrey said, ignoring Percy. "Here, I found a newspaper clipping in the library. I show it to you." She hurried upstairs. In almost no time at all, she was back (though panting) and she thrust a newspaper clipping at Joey. "Here you are."

Percy looked mildly interested at the photo she had found and his stomach turned over. It was the article written when his father had won the Ministry's Galleon Drawing four years previously. His family (himself included) smiled up at him and waved. Percy couldn't help but notice how different how much they'd changed from when they took that picture to the last time he'd seen them all. This made him wonder how much different they'd look now in comparison to when he last saw them. Percy swallowed the lump in his throat.

"Hey, that's you!" Joey said. His eyes skimmed the article. "You have _six_ siblings?"

"Yeah," Percy said standing up.

"I can't imagine having that many," Audrey said. "One is bad enough."

"I know," Joey replied. "She thinks the word revolves around her."

"My little brother does too," Audrey smiled.

"Excuse me," Percy said before hurrying out of the room.

Audrey's eyes followed him, and she said, "I'll be right back.

Audrey found Percy sitting at the desk in the library. "What was that about? Is there something I should know about?"

Percy didn't look up at her as she sat down in the chair opposite him. "I don't think you really want to know."

"Why wouldn't I? There's nothing really special about that picture except for your really large family and the fact that you went to Egypt which _really _isn't enough for me to piece together what's bothering you. So what's up?" She crossed her arms in a way that told Percy she wasn't leaving until she got some answers.

"The war," he finally said, "tears families apart."

Her eyes got wide, "They're not…..?"

"They're all still alive," Percy answered. "You remember a couple of years ago when Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore said that You-Know-Who had come back, but…"

"But the majority of the idiots in the world didn't believe them? Yeah, I remember that. I was really excited when the Quibbler came out with the interview about what _actually _happened. Weren't you?"

Percy shifted uncomfortably. "Well, that's actually why I don't talk to my family anymore."

She looked confused, "They didn't believe Dumbledore and Harry Potter? But wasn't your youngest brother friends with him? Yes, it's coming back to me now…"

"Audrey!" he cut in. "If you'll stop interrupting." She didn't appear ashamed or apologetic in anyway, but just sat patiently and waited for him to continue. "My family _did_ believe what Harry said, but I'd just gotten a promotion. I was now the Minister of Magic's Junior Assistant and, well, I was being an idiot."

Percy could have sworn that he heard her mumble, "And that's new to you?" but he pretended that he didn't notice.

"I refused to believe that You-Know-Who was back, or rather, I refused to openly admit it. There was a row between my dad and me…and I haven't properly spoken to any of them since. I sent my brother, Ron, a letter when I found out that he was made a Prefect, trying to convince him to be as much of an idiot as I was being and when Minister Scrimgeour wanted to speak with Harry last year, I went to my family's place for Christmas, but that's it. I abandoned them, Audrey," he looked up at her, almost pleadingly. "And now, I heard that Bill's gotten married and I wasn't even invited. My family's moved on and it's all my fault."

Audrey moved her chair closer to his. "I'm not going to tell you that you weren't an idiot because you were, but clearly you've gotten over that. I mean, if you're admitting it, then _clearly_ you know that you messed up and you want to fix it. It'll be okay. Just trust me."

"How do I not know that it's going to be too late?" he asked her, resting his head in his hands. "I mean, what if we get caught? I'll never have apologized. My family would still hate me. What if…." He took a deep breath, "What if something happens to one of them before I could ever make amends. We're in a war here and family is not the type to sit by and let something happen without putting up a fight. There's always a chance of it happening. And there's no way that I could talk to my father without the Ministry becoming suspicious of me. I mean, they've already searched my family's place and they're watching their every move. I can't risk this place being searched and having them find you and your family."

"Look, while you might not be able to apologize to your family for a little while and, yes, there is the chance that you never will, but you've always got us. We're not going anywhere for a while so even _if _you really did something terrible, we'd still be here," she put an arm around him, "whether you like it or not!"

He grinned at her.


	8. Growing Up

"So you said Bill got married?" Audrey asked looking at the picture. It'd been three days since they'd last mentioned the newspaper clipping and Percy was not especially eager to bring it up again.

"Yes," Percy said, drying his hands off. He'd been cleaning up after dinner while the rest of her family went outside to enjoy some of the last good weather before it started getting cold. The leaves were already starting to change colors. "Why do you ask?"

"Which one's Bill?" she asked pointing to the picture. Percy walked over to her and pointed to his eldest brother.

"You wouldn't recognize him, though," he said grimly.

"Why not?" she asked puzzled.

"Greyback," Percy said bitterly. Audrey gasped. "It wasn't a full moon, but still.

Audrey looked back at the picture horrified. "When did that happen?"

"The night Dumbledore died," Percy answered. "I went to his funeral and saw him. Someone told me how he got the scars."

Audrey swallowed. "I think I have them all figured out then. I'm going to guess that this one is Charlie," she pointed to the one with many minor burns on his arms. "He works with dragons, right?"

"Yeah, how'd you know?" Percy asked, confused.

"Article," she shrugged. "And these two are obviously Fred and George," she pointed to the twins, "though, I can't tell which is which."

"That one's Fred and that one's George."

"How can you tell?"

"Their grins," Percy shrugged. "Fred's is more joking and George's is more devious."

Audrey looked puzzled but said nothing more about the twins. "So that one must be Ron and that's definitely Ginny," she smiled. "How old are they now?"

"Fred and George left Hogwarts two years ago and if Ron was finishing, this would be his last year. Ginny's a sixth year," Percy said, finally comprehending how much time he'd missed with his family.

Audrey nodded. "Your father, Arthur, that's where you got Joey's new name? Arthur, Artie?"

Percy gave a small, sad smile. "Yeah, how'd you know?"

"You still miss them," she answered. "Your father especially since he's the one that you had such a big row with. I'm guessing that you wanted to still have _some_ tie to your family so you renamed Joey Artie."

"But Arthur would be too obvious," they both finished and they grinned at each other.

"Where'd you get the name Lucy?" Audrey asked. "Your mum is Molly and your sister's Ginny so…..?"

"I just liked the name," Percy shrugged. "It's always been my favorite name."

"Mine too," Audrey said, viewing Percy interestedly. "I always said that I wanted to have a daughter someday _just _so that I could name her Lucy."

Percy felt that it would be too odd to admit that he'd always thought the same thing.

XXX

"What was it like growing up in such a large family, knowing that you were a wizard?" Audrey asked one evening after the rest of her family had gone to bed.

"Um, oddly enough, lonely," Percy answered. Charlie was four years older than me and he and Percy spent most of their time together as kids and well, the twins were, and still are as far as I'm concerned, inseparable. And Ron and Ginny are a few years younger than me. As a kid, I read mostly. Bill and Charlie were both older and cooler than I was so I felt that I had to live up to them. Bill was Headboy and Charlie was the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain. I suppose that I felt like the overlooked middle child at times."

"Wow," Audrey said. "It seems like you would never get a word in edgewise. There's only Joey and me and we still fight to dominate the conversation."

Percy grinned. "You and Joey seem so close even though you were so far apart. What was it like for _you_ growing up?"

"Ah, now that is a very interesting story consisting of broken glasses, an excellent artist, far too many books than most children would ever read in their entire lives, and jealous older sisters. Do you still want to know?"

"Yes, what was life like for Young Audrey Simons?" Percy asked curiously, leaning forward.

"I was a handful, that's for sure. Not only was I overly talkative and rambunctious, strange things always happened to me. The candy that was set on a shelf far too high for me to reach somehow ending up on the floor right in front of me when I was three. The teacher who told me that I was stupid suddenly having her desk fall apart when I was five. China and glasses spontaneously shattering when I got angry. Well, you get the idea. I was always in trouble and in the Headmaster's office. None of the other children wanted to talk to me because I was so odd and I was too talkative. For some reason, though, Mum and Dad decided to have another child. They'd always wanted to have two or three children, but they didn't want another handful like me. But they decided to risk it. For the first seven years of my life, I was the center of attention. Usually I was being scolded for something, but it was attention nonetheless. Then suddenly, all anyone could talk about was the baby; how adorable he was, how little, and things like that. It was horrible. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. The window in the nursery broke even though we were all standing across the room from it." Audrey shook her head. "Somehow, I knew it was my fault and I was terrified. I thought I was a horrible person even though Mum and Dad didn't blame me. They blamed the guy who installed the window."

"So where do the artist and the books come in?" Percy asked, raising his eyebrows.

"I'm getting to that. So after the incident with the window, I stopped talking as much. I mellowed out a little."

"Mellowed out?" Percy asked.

"Yeah, what?"

"You call yourself mellow?" he grinned.

"Yes, mellow for me," she snapped. "Anyway, I started reading a lot. I read more books in the next four years of my life then most of the kids at my school had in their entire lives, and that's including when their parents read to them. Then I got my letter. It explained a lot when you think about it," she shrugged. "I mean, there was an explanation behind all the weird stuff that had happened to me or that I'd done. Mum and Dad didn't want to send me to Hogwarts at first. They were slightly scared at the idea of having a witch in the family, but I wanted to learn more about whatever it was that I was doing. Mum and Dad finally let me go. Sometimes I wonder if we'd be in this mess if I weren't so stubborn," she stared off into space bitterly for a moment then shook her head. "Anyway, they assumed that Joey would be a wizard too, but he was only four at the time, so it was hard to tell. But he somehow grew up pretty normal. The only thing that really we had in common was our talkativeness and our love for books. What made him abnormal, though, were his drawings. They're amazing! If he hasn't shown you any yet, you've _got_ to see them. The year after I finished Hogwarts, we all expected Joey to get a letter, but it never came. I don't think that he was really bothered by this since he had drawing over me (I can barely draw stick figures) but I always felt a little bad about being a witch after that." She took a deep breath. "Wow! See what I mean about the talkativeness? I bet you're bored to death right now."

"No. No, I'm not. It was interesting," Percy said and he genuinely meant it.

"Who do you think had it worse? Your parents or mine? Your parents had seven children who were magic whereas mine only had one, but yours knew what they were up against and mine were Muggles," she thought for a moment. "I can't decided."

"Well, my parents did have the twins who I'm sure _still_ are handfuls, but yours had you. That is a tough one. Not counting the twins, I'm going to say that my parents had it easier," he concluded.

"Why?" she asked.

"By the time that Ginny was born, Bill was already at Hogwarts so not only were they used to raising wizards, they also had Charlie who was old enough to have some control over his magic, at least, enough not to explode the entire kitchen every time he got angry, they had Ron and Ginny who were both too young to do magic at all, and they had me," he said. "This is not counting Fred and George, mind."

"What made you so easy to raise?" Audrey asked skeptically.

"I always had better control over it than most children."

"You had more control over you magic than most children?" she raised her eyebrows.

"No, I had more control over my emotions that most children," he said flatly. "Certainly more than you did."

Rather than retorting, she sat up more straightly. "And that's why people love me. _I'm_ not boring." With that, she stood up, bid him goodnight, and strode upstairs to her room.

As he watched her leave, Percy couldn't help but grin.


	9. Routine

Disclaimer: If any of you know when J. K. Rowling wants to give up the rights to Harry Potter, please let me know, because I don't own it! All I own is a copy of each book in the series and a copy of the first book in French (which I can't yet read).

Author's Note: WOW! It's been forever since I've posted! I've been crazy busy lately! Anyway, here's the newest installment of Audrey Weasley.

A routine befell upon the cottage. Percy would go to work every day and usually come back in a foul mood or with a dark look on his face. Usually Audrey was the only one brave enough to ask him what was wrong when this happened. Often, neither of them wanted him to answer. While he was at work, the rest of the family tried to fix up the cottage which was difficult with only one witch in the family. It seemed as though, in his old age, Ignatius Weasley had neglected the needs of the old cottage and hadn't paid for someone else to care for it. Some of the more minor problems included the leaky roof and the more major problems the building's moldy frame. At five o'clock, one of the four (they alternated days) would stop working on the cottage to make supper. Percy normally got off work at six. Sometimes he was late; on those days the food grew cold as the family was too worried to eat. No matter how natural their new lifestyle had become, they were always plagued by fear that their secret might be discovered and that Percy wouldn't come home that evening. Percy always tried to get away from work as fast as he could, but was forced to stop and talk with people so not to appear suspicious.

Normally, Percy was less than an hour late, but on this particular night, it was eight o'clock before the fireplace roared to life; not with the usual orange fire, but with green. Until then, Joey and Mr. Simmons sat stiffly on the couch, not daring to say what they were both thinking; Mrs. Simmons made tea that no one could bring themselves to drink; and Audrey paced the floor (much to her mother's annoyance) and glanced at the fireplace and out the window every time she got close to either.

Percy stepped out of the fireplace, attempted (with not much success) to brush the soot off his pants, and readjusted his glasses before Audrey rounded on him. "_**WHAT **_took you so long!" she shouted as the rest of her family merely let out sighs of relief.

Percy would have taken several steps back (and possibly ran in the other direction, were he not a Gryffindor) but as he was already standing in front of the fireplace, he was only able to retreat two and cower in fear slightly. "Um, I got stopped on my way out," he said, afraid of saying anything more.

"By who!" she shouted. "And why would it take you _two hours_ before you could come back!"

"Umbridge," Percy answered slightly louder than he'd been speaking before. "She cornered me just before I managed to leave and she gave me more work to do." Percy shuddered slightly at remembering their earlier meeting.

_Percy stood up, grabbed his cloak, and was ready to hurry back to the cottage, but someone was standing in his way; someone wearing bright pink robes and a tiny black bow in her hair. "Dolores," he said pleasantly. He hoped this wouldn't take long; he hated being late home and Dolores always creeped him out._

_ "Mr. Weasley," she said, smiling sweetly. He tried not to shudder. Her mouth was so large that she looked like she could swallow both Percy and his desk whole. "Could I ask you a favor?" she smiled in a way that sent shivers down his spine._

_ "Of course," he answered. _Oh, no. What have I gotten myself into?

_"Could you finish cataloging these Ministry employees for me? I was going to have my assistant finish it for me, but he needed to get home to his sick mother early. Poor fellow," She let out a girlish giggle. "Just leave it on my desk when you're finished."_

_ He sighed and opened the envelope she'd handed him and braced himself for the worst. However, he merely had to copy various Ministry workers names, jobs, etc. down in alphabetic order. The Ministry had to rewrite this list of information every so often to keep itself up to date. Percy didn't feel the least bit sick to his stomach (he feared he'd be cataloging Muggle-borns and Squibs or something of the sort) at all, though he did feel a bit tired when he finished._

_Just before he was about to begin, Yaxley came in, noticed that Percy was still working, and struck up a conversation with him. Percy nodded and said idle things such as, "Yes," and "I agree," and "Absolutely," with little idea about which he was actually conversing. He did catch snippets of the conversations such as, "She's always complaining," and "I dunno. Sometimes I wished I'd taken my father's advice and stayed a bachelor," so Percy supposed that he was in the clear and not discussing a new Ministry policy for non-pure-bloods._

_Finally, at around seven-thirty, Percy had finished and turned in Umbridge's work and was about to leave when Yaxley stopped him. "You're not leaving already are you?" he asked._

"_I finished everything I had today," Percy said, putting on his cloak._

"_How about a drink?" Yaxley asked._

"_No, I think I'll just go back home," he shook his head._

"_Come on!" Yaxley said. "You're always going by this same routine. Work, home, work, home. You never go out and have fun. Live a little."_

"_I like my routine," Percy said firmly._

"_You know, sometimes, I think that you have something to do. You're always rushing home," Yaxley glanced at Percy's left hand. "You didn't elope, did you?"_

"_No!" Percy said surprised. "Why would you say that?"_

"_Dunno," Yaxley gave him a strange look. "It's just that a lot of people are eloping nowadays and I just wanted to warn you, __**don't do it!**__ Stay a bachelor! Trust me, you do NOT want to get married."_

"_I'll keep that in mind," Percy said nervously._

"_Alright, so you coming?" Yaxley asked._

"_Maybe some other time," Percy said before hurrying over to the fireplace before Yaxley could say another word._

"And you couldn't have let us know not to worry?" Audrey shouted.

"Yaxley was rambling to me the entire time," he said. "I would've if I were alone!"

"You could've excused yourself to the bathroom to send us a Patronus or something!" she shouted.

Percy was about to say something, but he stopped. "Oh. I didn't think of that."

"You could've stopped at, 'I didn't think!'" she shouted and stormed up the stairs.

There was an awkward silence broken by Mrs. Simmons saying, "Well! I'll reheat supper. Who's hungry?" followed by Mr. Simon's and Joey's "I'm starving!" which was a little too loud and cheerful to be honest considering the circumstances.

XXX

Later that evening, when the rest of the family had gone to bed (it _was_ rather late) Percy heard someone creep into the kitchen as he was cleaning up the dishes. He looked up to see Audrey looking slightly sheepish and slightly annoyed at the sight of him. "Audrey," he whispered, "what are you doing here?"

"Seeing if there were any leftovers," she admitted. "I can't get to sleep on an empty stomach."

"Over there," he pointed towards the counter where the pots and dishes had been covered with foil.

"Thanks," she said gratefully. She hurried over to the counter and grabbed a roll than was much staler and colder than it had been a few hours previously, but still very delicious. "By the way, I'm sorry that I went off on you earlier."

"It's fine," Percy said, setting Mr. Simons' plate in the sink and flicking his wand so that the sponge scrubbed it by itself. He turned to face her. "I should've thought of a way to contact you, like you said."

"But still. I was just worried," she looked rather guilty.

"Well, I suppose that since I've gone off on you before, we're even now," he mused.

"No," she said slowly. A small smile began to form on her face. "I think that you've gone off on me twice. After I took a while at my house and after you found out that I brought photo albums with me."

"The second time doesn't count. You argued back. Besides," he grinned, "you're scarier than I am. When you go off, it's worse than when I do."

"True," she nodded. "You're not scary at all."

"And you are pretty-Scary! Pretty scary! You're pretty scary," he said at the look on her face. Percy felt his face grow red and he inwardly cursed his Weasley-genes.

"Thank you," she said as she left the room, taking much of the leftovers with her. Percy wasn't quite sure for what she was thanking him, but he had a pretty good idea of what.

Silently as he could, Percy banged his head on the counter, muttering, "Stupid, stupid, stupid," repeatedly.

XXX

Audrey hurried up the stairs, trying not to get crumbs on her top. She wasn't sure why, but she felt oddly excited and upbeat.


	10. Camping Out in the Backyard

Author's Note: I am SO incredibly sorry that it has taken me so long to update. Seriously, it's been 15 months! If you guys don't want to kill me, please accept my apology. I really did mean to write this sooner, but I sort of lost the muse and I got caught up in the real world, you know, off the internet! (I know; it's shocking!) But I'm back and I intend to wrap this story up over the summer, but I'm not going to make any promises as I really have no idea what will happen.

"This just isn't going to work," Audrey said surveying the outside of the cottage.

"I'm sure we could make it work _somehow!_" Joey said.

"Joey, we're lucky that the whole house hasn't completely collapsed on us yet! Just think about what would happen if we tried to work on it!" she walked a few feet away from him and viewed another part of the wall before walking back over to him. "I'd say that you'd need three or four witches and wizards to fix this; two mimimum."

"Then let's just wait until Percy gets home," Joey shrugged. "Then the two of you could fix it."

"Percy has enough to do as it is without having to work on repairing the cottage. He's under a lot of stress right now with all that's going on at the Ministry."

Audrey could have sworn that she heard Joey grumble, "The house collapsing would probably be more stressful than fixing it," but when she turned around to glare at him, he seemed busy criticizing the house in his head. "Why can't you just fix it with magic by yourself?"

"I'm not exactly an expert at fixing houses, am I?" Audrey raised her eyebrows. "But based on what I'm seeing here, I doubt one person could handle it."

Joey gasped. "Did you just admit that you _aren't an expert _at something?"

"Oh, shut up!"

"I didn't say anything," a voice from behind them said.

"Percy!" Audrey turned around. "You're early!"

"They let me go home early," Percy shrugged. "What are you guys doing?"

"We're trying to fix the house. It could cave in at any moment," Joey answered.

"Need any help?" Percy asked and before Audrey could even open her mouth to say, "No, that's fine," Joey said, "That'd be great!"

Audrey sighed and continued, "The house is falling in on itself. I'm amazed that it's still intact even now. I'm afraid we're going to have to tear down this wall before we can get to the root of the problem and it'll probably take a week or so even _with _magic…."

"But it's not exactly warm enough outside to be sleeping without a wall?" Percy finished for her.

"Yeah," she surveyed the wall again for a moment. I guess everyone could just sleep on the east side of the house and keep fires running though the entire house." In all honesty, Audrey didn't know which side of the house was the east side and which was the west until that very moment. You see, the sun was setting behind Percy's head, making his already fiery red hair glow strangely (but not unattractively). Therefore, this was the west side of the house.

"But the east side isn't much more stable than this side," Joey said dryly.

"I wish we have done this a few weeks ago when it was still warm outside. It just would have been like camping out in the backyard like when we were little," Audrey grinned.

Percy raised an eyebrow. "Camping out in the backyard…"

"You never camped out in the backyard as a kid?" Audrey asked, not defensively, but rather worriedly.

"Ah, no. Is that a Muggle thing?"

Audrey patted his shoulder, "You must have had a very boring childhood."

"Something like that," he replied dismissively. He viewed the wall for a moment and grinned. "I think I have a plan…"

And so the five of them set out on repairing the house. With the combined efforts of manual labor, Percy's hidden architectural genius, and Percy and Audrey's magic, they managed to completely fix the house within a week. Granted, they had to tear down almost every wall, but it was fixed nonetheless. Well, at least three of them thought it was fixed; Audrey said that it was one of the ugliest houses she'd ever seen and that it needed some serious updating while Joey complained that it was in desperately needed new paint before it was fit for human habitation. Their parents refused to comment while Percy pointed out that was just more work for them to do.

But at least, they could safely sit in the house without fearing it collapse on top of them.

XXX

"Isn't it a bit cold for this?" Percy asked Audrey. Despite the fact that it was late October, she was laying on a blanket that she'd spread out in the backyard.

"So you've seriously never camped out in the backyard?" she asked him, disbelieving.

"Camping? That Muggle thing where you go into the middle of nowhere, sleep in a tent, don't use indoor plumbing, and avoid civilization for however long. Doesn't a backyard defeat the purpose of that?….whatever that is," Percy shook his head, genuinely confused.

"Don't tell me you've never been camping!" Audrey accused.

"Sort of. We stayed in a tent when we saw the Quidditch Cup three years ago."

"I guess you could count that…" Audrey's face lit up. "Hey, Percy, we should camp out in the backyard tonight!"

"I don't think that's a good idea," he said.

"Why not?"

"That's why," he pointed to the sky.

Audrey looked up only to have a small white speck land on her nose. "SNOW!"

With that, she dashed into the house and proceeded to shout, "IT'S SNOWING! IT'S SNOWING!"

A very sleepy and very annoyed Joey stumbled out of his room saying, "It's one in the morning, Audrey! _What_ is so important!"

"_It's snowing_!" she shouted, her face maybe four inches away from his.

But rather than snapping at her to shut up and go to bed or to get a grip like Percy had expected, Joey's face lit up as brightly as hers and he dashed to find his a coat and his shoes.

The two of them sprinted towards the door and proceeded to have a snowball fight with what little snow had fallen in the past five minutes.

Percy raised an eyebrow at Mr. and Mrs. Simmons who'd just stepped out of their bedroom.

"It's a tradition," Mrs. Simmons smiled. "When they see the first snow of winter, they have to go play in it, no matter what time it is."

Percy nodded confused.

"Aren't you going out there with them?" Mr. Simmons asked.

"Um…." Was all Percy managed to say before Audrey and Joey burst back into the living room to drag Percy out there with them. And, if only for that night, Percy was back at the Burrow with his brothers and sister.


	11. Christmas Special

Author's Note: Audrey's dream was a _lot _of fun to write especially since I have odd dreams like that myself. Really, all I did was just write whatever popped in my head when writing her dream. Question, when you eat in your dream, does your stomach hurt the next day, are you hungry, or what? Reviews on this matter would be much appreciated.

Not many people focus on Christmas during Voldemort's reign, but I consider taking away Christmas a capital offence. I do not believe that Voldemort would celebrate because he is that kind of evil. I believe that he would make Ebenezer Scrooge and The Grinch look like Christmas carolers. Honestly.

Anyway, sorry that this is summer as opposed to December which would make a lot more sense, but this allows me to share one of my favorite Christmas/Summer/Muppets quote. Enjoy.

Two of the Three Little Pigs: Santa! Santa!

Miss Piggy: Think. Christmas is in December. This is the middle of summer.

Two of the Three Little Pigs: He's early!

Now, enjoy the _actual _story.

"And so then, Professor McGonagall walks in holding a dozen or so balloons and she starts yelling at me for not doing my homework on time and I tried to explain to her that it was summer so it didn't matter, but then she yells at me saying it's Valentine's Day and I need to get professor Flitwick a card. And all the while, I'm still trying to finish this stupid tapestry that Joey wanted me to weave for him. And honestly, _what_ professor McGonagall was doing in my grandmother's living room was beyond me. So then _you_ burst in saying that there was a tidal wave which is ridiculous because my grandmother doesn't live anywhere near the ocean and McGonagall takes points away from Gryffindor because you're not wearing a shirt and your tie was purple rather than red, but you said that Dumbledore wanted you to wear it….."

"Wait, I wasn't wearing a shirt?" Percy interrupted.

Audrey threw her hands up and shrugged. "I told you, it was really strange. So then, Jennifer Cole, you remember her right? She was one of my dorm mates at Hogwarts. Anyway, she comes in soaking wet because of that tidal wave you were talking about and she was also trying to unclog the sink but it exploded on her….."

"_What_ are you talking about?" Joey, who'd just passed by the door asked.

"The dream I had last night, now shut up. I'm getting to the good part!" Joey sighed and walked away, shaking his head at his sister's strangeness. "So anyway, I told you about how I thought it was summer and McGonagall thought it was Valentine's Day? Well, apparently everyone was messed up on the date because then Flitwick and Sprout came in holding a cake that was decorated to celebrate both St. Patrick's Day _and_ Easter. Apparently they couldn't decide either so they just put lots of decorative icing on it."

"Which one thought it was Easter?" Percy asked.

"I don't know! Does it really matter?" Audrey took a deep breath. "Anyway, it was then, when they starting cutting the cake that I remembered it was my birthday actually making it April. And suddenly that orange tapestry I was weaving earlier was suddenly finished and so I stuffed my face with cake (it was red velvet, my favorite) and then I woke up. And that's why my stomach has hurt all morning because when I eat something in my dream, it always gives me a stomach ache the next day."

Percy nodded, unsure of what to say. "That usually just makes me hungry the next day."

"Most people say that!" Audrey exclaimed. "But not for me for some reason."

Percy nodded once again.

"You don't say much, you know," Audrey pointed out.

"I'm just not sure what I'm supposed to say…That was a rather odd dream." Percy had slowly become accustomed to Audrey having strange dreams that she felt the need to tell everyone the next day. One of her previous dreams involved a member of the Weird Sisters balancing a pumpkin on his head while juggling parrots and another Joey becoming an animagus (despite the fact that he was a Muggle) and randomly turning into a zebra whenever someone said the word "the." (This made Joey sulk for the rest of the day as he would have loved to turn into a zebra at will.)

"Well, surely you must be thinking _something_!"

"I'm mostly thinking 'She's mental,'" Percy replied honestly.

"I could have told you that ages ago!" Joey shouted from the other room while Audrey smacked Percy over the head with one of the couch pillows.

"Dinner's served!" Mr. Simmons called.

Once everyone was settled at the table and the dishes were being passed around the table, Joey asked, "So, what are we doing for Christmas this year?"

An abrupt silence fell over the table.

Percy had not celebrated Christmas properly in three years (he didn't count that horrible encounter with this family that Scrimgeour had dragged him into the previous year).

Mr. and Mrs. Simmons were so focused on being alive that celebrating something as trivial as Christmas hadn't occurred to them.

Christmas was Audrey's favorite holiday.

But she wasn't going to put more stress on everyone to have perfect Christmas what with the circumstances. She sent Joey a dirty look. "There's a _war_ going on. We can't stop to celebrate some holiday no matter how…," she sighed

"Oh, sorry," his face fell.

"No, that's okay," Percy considered for a moment. "I don't know. What do Muggles usually do for Christmas? I mean…" his face flushed.

"That's fine," Mrs. Simmons smiled. "You've never celebrated Christmas with Muggles before and we've never celebrated Christmas with a wizard before." Her smile broadened. "This could be a learning experience for all of us."

Percy's cheeks returned to their normal color a little too quickly. No one noticed this except Audrey of course who smiled slightly.

"So we get to do Christmas this year?" Joey asked trying to conceal his excitement.

"Why not?"

"YES!"

The rest of dinner was spent making plans about having a Christmas despite being in hiding. As the table was being cleared, Audrey caught Percy and pulled him aside. "I know what you did there."

"What do you mean?" Percy asked feigning innocence. His act was so good that she almost believed him. Almost.

"You know very well what I mean." She jerked her head over to the dinner table. "The whole 'Muggle' thing. You and I both know that Muggle and wizard Christmases are almost the same. Really, the only difference is that Muggle Christmas lights run on electricity rather than magic."

"And your point is…..?" Percy asked.

"You needed an excuse to have Christmas." She poked him in the stomach playfully, "You did it for me, didn't you?"

"I most certainly did not. I did it for Joey. Besides, I would _love_ to see how Muggle eckeltricity Christmas lights work. It would be very educational. Very intriguing. Very fascinating. Very stimulating. Very captivating. Very didactic. Very enlightening. Very informative. Very…."

"Okay, I'm sure," Audrey said abruptly. "Before I start calling you a human thesaurus."

XXX

Percy sighed as he looked around the office. Normally by the fifteen of December, the entire Ministry would be covered with crepe paper, red and green and gold lights (with live fairies in them, of course), trees that always seemed just a little too large for the room, and foot-tall Father Christmases that delivered presents to Ministry workers from their more Christmas-loving coworkers. And of course it would be snowing. One must always remember to bring a coat and gloves between the first and twenty-fifth of December. But this year, there wasn't so much as a piece of holly hanging from the ceiling.

Until this year, Percy had never appreciated the Ministry's over the top Christmas décor until now. A few cheerful coworkers of his had decorated their owns desks, however, apparently that now went against new Ministry employee policies. Still, some _very _jolly co-workers still managed to find little ways of celebrating the season. Whether it was merely wearing a red jumper or drinking hot cocoa rather than tea or _very quietly _humming carols or even just using green stationary, these employees proved that no matter how hard the new Ministry may try, Christmas was the one thing you cannot destroy.

However, there were perks to not celebrating Christmas a work: mistletoe. For the past three years, his coworkers had taken great pleasure in placing mistletoe above his usual haunts (his desk, his seat in the break room where he occasionally ate his lunch, above the door to the men's bathroom, etc.). Not because anyone wanted to kiss him, no.

Quite the contrary actually.

Because they knew how uptight he was and how much he absolutely hated the very thought of mistletoe.

But luckily, this year, there was none of that foolishness. And none of the likeable foolishness either.

XXX

"And **a haaaaaaaaaaaaapy new !**" was the first thing Percy heard as he neared the house. He opened the front door to see three of the four Simmons hanging ornaments on a large pine tree while the fourth (Audrey) was clumsily attempting to place a gold star atop the tree. The chair she was standing on wasn't quite tall enough and the tree was too wide for her arm to reach.

"Need any help?" Percy asked. He scanned the rest of the room and quickly swallowed the lump that formed in his throat; the living room could be best described as a paper-chain explosions, much like how his own sister would decorate it. Though, Ginny would have preferred gold to the red and green decorations that lined the walls.

"Nah, we're almost done," Audrey replied. "Just…gotta…..get…..the….star!" she reached out as far as humanly possible and placed/threw the star atop the tree. Of course it didn't quite make it and Percy caught it before it reached the floor. Audrey blew a strand of hair out of her face.

"You want me to get it?" Percy asked.

"And let you have all the fun?" Audrey grinned. She frowned and stepped of the chair, "Huh, this is your first Christmas with us. You haven't gotten to put the star on the tree yet."

"Of course," Joey grumbled. "If _I_ want to do the star, no, we can't do that, but when _Percy_ wants to….."

"He hasn't gotten to at all yet. Besides, you did it last year….."

"I did not! You got to last year!"

"QUIET, BOTH OF YOU!" Mr. Simmons shouted. He sighed and turned to Percy, "It's been like this all day!"

"Er, is putting the star on the tree some sort of honor….?" Percy asked completely bewildered. Percy was amazed at how often he said "er" and "um" around the family.

"Just between Audrey and Joey, it is," Mrs. Simmons replied. "They have a tradition of arguing over who gets to do it each year."

"And who usually wins?"

"Audrey."

"Joey."

The two glared at each other.

XXX

"….and then we go see _The Christmas Carol_," Mrs. Simmons said. "The local theater always does a special showing on Christmas Eve. After that, we usually stroll around down town and look at all the stores' Christmas decorations. Then we go home and put our stockings by the fire. Of course then Audrey and Joey beg us to let them open just one present," she smiled at her children, "and sometimes we relent."

"Hardly," took a sip of hot cocoa.

"Rarely," Audrey agreed.

"Almost never."

"Maybe twice. In my entire life."

"About every other year," Mr. Simmons corrected.

"What do you usually do for Christmas, dear?" Mrs. Simmons asked Percy.

"Sulk mostly," he replied.

Everyone chuckled.

"But my sister often decorated the house a lot like Audrey did," he took a sip of his cocoa, "only there would be about twice as many streamers and they'd be gold. Oh, and we do something different each year for the angel/star on the tree."

Joey asked, stunned, "How'd you have twice as many streamers? Wouldn't your house fall in from the weight? Or the world run out of paper or something?"

"Magic," Percy took a sip of his cocoa. "And of course there's the sweater thing. My mum always makes us sweaters with our first initial on them for Christmas. My sweater's always dark blue, Ron's is always maroon, Fred's is green, George's is orange."

"That's cool," Audrey said. "Mum and Dad do something like that. Every year there's one present that both Joey and I get. Last year we got watches. The year before that they were copies of _The Christmas Carol_….."

"You keep talking about _The Christmas Carol_. What is that?" Percy asked.

The three Muggles in the room froze, but Audrey shook her head. "Sorry, I forgot that you weren't raised by Muggles. The Christmas Carol was written by Charles Dickens…."

"Charles…."

"Dickens," Audrey nodded. "He was a very famous Muggle writer."

"I think I've heard the name before," Percy nodded. "My dad's obsessed with all things Muggle."

"Yeah, well, _The Christmas Carol_ is about, well, why don't you just read it? I have a copy upstairs. You'd probably like it. Anyway, one year Mum and Dad got us sleds, but it didn't snow _all winter_….."

XXX

"Can you believe that?" Yaxley asked.

"Eh?" Percy looked up. He'd been so immersed in the report he'd been writing that he hadn't even noticed Yaxley coming up to him, much less hear whatever it was he was saying. Sometimes Percy believed that Yaxley's job was to just distract Percy from his work and/or prevent him from getting home to Audrey…no, the Simmons on time. Right. Because he didn't want the Simmons to worry. And he loved the whole family equally. He wasn't mostly interested in just seeing Audrey. No. It was the whole family…

"Did you hear a word that I said?" Yaxley asked amused.

"Sorry, I was working on this report….."

"I was talking about how the Ministry is closing for Christmas," Yaxley interrupted. "Apparently so many people asked off for work that day that the Minister just decided to close down for the day. Can you believe that?"

"Er," Percy said knowing very well that this was probably the worst possible thing to say at that moment, "we always have before. And usually we close for New Year's Day because most people are so hungover from the night before that they'd probably kill themselves trying to Apparate here and they wouldn't get any work done."

Yaxley glared. "Do _you_ get drunk on New Year's Eve?"

"No, I can honestly say that I've never gotten drunk in my entire life," Percy turned back to his work. "Besides, a lot of people want to take off to spend time with their families. Their kids come back from Hogwarts and the Christmas and summer holidays are really the only time parents get to see them."

"But you don't have kids."

"_I_ don't, but there are a lot of people who do," Percy was surprised by his own boldness. "Besides, don't you want to spend Christmas with your wife?"

"Percy, don't you know by now that I would do pretty much anything if I could avoid spending time with my wife?" Yaxley asked and Percy shrugged in response. "You don't have anywhere to go, do you?" Yaxley's eyes narrowed. "Not spending Christmas with that family of yours, are you?"

"Why would I do that?" Percy asked.

"Just checking," Yaxley nodded. "Well, I don't want to keep you from your work."

"Sure you don't," Percy muttered under his breath.

XXX

"Smells amazing," Percy said to Mrs. Simmons who was cooking that night. As he set the table he noticed something. Mrs. Simmons was tending to the roast in the oven, Mr. Simmons was tossing the salad, and Joey was reading a book in the living room. "Where's Audrey?"

"In her room. She's been there all day," Mrs. Simmons answered, never turning her head from the stove. "Tell her to come down, dear. We'll be eating in about five minutes."

Percy walked upstairs and knocked on Audrey's door. "Hang on!" came her hurried reply and Percy thought he heard her scrambling to put stuff away. She opened the door not long after. "What's up?"

"Dinner's almost ready. You mum wanted me to come get you," he tried to see over her shoulder. "What's that?" he asked pointing to what looked like a shoe box sticking out from under her bed.

Audrey hurried over to it and shoved it under her bed. "That's for me to know and you to find out in two days. Oh, hey, I have something for you." She ruffled through her dresser which Percy could see was not at all organized and finally she found what she was looking for. She handed him a novel, "_The Christmas Carol_. Knowing you you'll probably have it finished by tomorrow."

Until he was sitting at the dinner table with roast on the plate in front of him, Percy had his nose stuck in the book.

XXX

It had been agreed (seeing as four of them were stuck in the cottage) that they wouldn't do gifts that year for Christmas. Percy would just buy some candy that they'd put in the stockings, they'd cook a nice Christmas dinner (there was quite a, ah, discussions on whether they'd have ham or turkey), and that would be that. However, there were two people in the house who refused to follow through with that. Those first was, obviously, Audrey and the second, less obviously, was Percy. Though he'd never gotten very excited about Christmas himself, he wasn't planning on letting this family go without a proper Christmas.

While the two of them probably would have benefited working together (Percy had had much trouble deciding what to get everyone), neither of them knew anything of the other's mission. That is, not until exactly 11:53 PM on Christmas Eve.

Both of them had had the brilliant idea of putting their presents under the tree at about midnight and both had decided to leave the lights off so the family wouldn't notice. With such being the plan, neither of them saw the other and ended up tripping over each other.

"Ow!"

"Ouch-get off me!"

"Ow-Percy?"

"Audrey?"

"This is stupid. Lumos," her wand lit up and instantly she stood; they had landed in a quite awkward position where she'd ended up on top of him. She helped him to his feet and asked suspiciously, "What were you doing down here?"

"Getting something to drink."

"With all those boxes?" she jerked her head to the pile of packages wrapped up in bright, Christmas paper in the neat-only-a-store-cashier-could-have-possibly-wrapped-it manner. She glared at one of the smaller boxes which she was pretty sure had hit her in the head when the two of them had, ah, collided.

"And you're here with all _those_ boxes…..?" Percy gestured to her not-at-all-neat-I-was-in-a-hurry-and-I-wrapped-them-myself boxes.

"Putting them under the tree so when everyone wakes up tomorrow they'll have presents," she whispered brightly.

"Right," Percy sighed and the two of them proceeded to place the (only slightly damaged) boxes under the tree.

XXX

Percy awoke on Christmas morning and nearly strangled himself. Well, not quite. But someone (he had a pretty good idea who) had wrapped an extremely long red ribbon around his headboard, dresser, ceiling fan, the doorknob on his closet, around the lamp and then finally out the door. When he sat up, he'd gotten caught up in all the ribbon.

Percy followed the ribbon out of his room, into the bathroom, back out again, into the library, back out again, and to the stairs where it became twisted up with three others, one gold, one silver, and one green. He grinned and followed the red ribbon down the stairs and as it parted from the others, going into the kitchen, the downstairs bathroom, and finally into the living room where it ended in his stocking that hung above the fireplace.

Despite that fact that Percy knew exactly what was in the stockings (he bought all the candy after all), he couldn't help but grin at Audrey's "Christmas cheer."

"I was wondering when you'd wake up," Audrey, who Percy hadn't noticed when he walked in, said. "I've been up for hours!"

"Doing what?"

"Somebody had to hang all those ribbons and fill the stockings."

"And here I thought it was Father Christmas," Percy smiled.

"Since when do you sleep in?" Audrey asked.

Percy glanced at the clock. "It's 7:15. That's not sleeping in."

"It's 7:14 to be exact and on Christmas that _is_ sleeping in."

"And where's everyone else?" he asked.

"One of their many Christmas traditions is to torture me by making me wait as they usually don't get up until around eight." She scowled. "By the way, I'd be careful where you step."

Percy stood up straight. He was all too used to Fred and George's Christmas pranks to let his guard down at a comment like that. "Why?" he asked suspeciously.

She pointed to the ceiling and said brightly, "Mistletoe."

Slowly the rest of the family came in (Mrs. Simmons following the gold ribbon, Joey the green, and Mr. Simmons the silver).

Joey's face lit up when he entered. "**PRESENTS!**"

And then the four Simmons were tearing through the presents Percy had bought them (Audrey insisted that they open hers last). Once everyone had had a suitable amount of time to admire their gifts (a pair of diamond earrings for Mrs. Simmons, a watch for Mr. Simmons, a new paint set for Joey, and a gold locket for Audrey), Audrey sat back in satisfaction as they moved on to her gifts.

"Since I've been cooped up in this cottage, I wasn't able to buy you anything as nice as what Percy got you, but I'll think you'll still like them."

What she'd done (Percy had given her the idea) was knit for them.

A scarf for her mother. Hats for her father and brother. And a sweater, a Weasley sweater for Percy.

He stared at the dark blue sweater, unable to speak.

"You said that you mum knit your first initial onto the front of it, but I'm not that good at knitting so..."

"Thank you," Percy took a shaky breath. "Thanks, Audrey."

XXX

Percy would have loved to say it was the best Christmas he could remember, but no, it was ruined by the most foul, vile Christmas had to offer: mistletoe. _Really, who hangs mistletoe _everywhere_ in a house with only one couple! _Percy thought, though otherwise he enjoyed this Christmas.

They'd made snowmen, had _many_ snowball fights (somehow Percy always seemed to lose), enjoyed a lot of hot cocoa, sang many a Christmas Carol, and (though he'd never say it in front of his mother) they'd eaten one of the best Christmas dinner's in Percy's life.

Percy, of course, had worn his sweater the entire time.

"If you stand there any longer, I might just have to kiss you," Mrs. Simmons pointed to the mistletoe just above Percy's head, laughing.

He jumped out of the way, his face as red as his hair. "Wouldn't your husband get jealous?"

"He's not really the jealous type," she shrugged. "He's also not a really over-protective father, either." She glanced at Audrey (who was walking towards them), winked at Percy, and walked away.

"She left in a hurry," Audrey commented.

"Yeah," Percy nodded, his face still red.

"You realize that you're _still _standing under mistletoe right?"

Percy looked up and found that, yes, someone _had _two pieces of mistletoe merely two feet apart. "Who does that?" he asked angrily.

"Probably someone who expected someone to take only a step away without actually bothering to look up," Audrey answered.

"It wasn't you?"

"No, I think it was Joey, but I'm not sure."

"I hate mistletoe."

"Why?" Audrey grinned. "You don't like getting kissed?"

"It's not that. My co-workers just liked to annoy me with it and…." He shrugged. "I don't know."

Audrey shrugged and gave him a peck on the cheek. "Merry Christmas," and with that, she was gone.

It was quite the best Christmas ever, Percy decided.


	12. New Year's Day

Author's Note: Yes, I most absolutely am the Grammar Police. Okay, maybe I'm fresh out of the Grammar Police Academy. Alright, there are just a few rules (the unidentified pronoun gender rule, the punctuation and quotation rule, certain helping verb rules, _sometimes_ the rule about never ending a sentence with a preposition, and the rule concerning was and were when it comes to speaking hypothetically) that I really value. Don't get me wrong, I mess up all the time (especially when speaking), but I _hate_ when people use periods in front of quotations when there's more to the sentence. That one just _irks_ me. (My eyes are actually just twitched just thinking about it.) So anyway, enjoy. And please, feel free to correct whatever grammatical mistakes you find in this story. I'll find it most amusing, but I'll probably be too lazy to do anything about it. (Sad but true.)

As Percy had expected, most of the Ministry's employees were too hung over to actually get any work done on New Year's Day, but they were still required to come in that day. They'd already closed the Ministry on Christmas so they _certainly_ couldn't close _again_.

The Simmons and Percy had celebrated a rather quite new year; there really was nothing to do when stuck in a little cottage unable to take part in anyone else's celebrations. Therefore, Percy was perfectly sober the next morning (though a little drowsy from staying up till midnight just too watch the clock tick and listen Audrey and Joey scream "**HAPPY NEW YEAR!**" _right _in his ear).

The girl in the desk across from his groaned loudly.

"How much did you have to drink last night?" he asked her, almost amused.

"I lost count after….six," she mumbled.

"Six what?" Percy wasn't sure if he wanted to hear the answer.

She just groaned in reply.

"Do you have a hangover potion?" he asked.

"I have a recipe for one, but my head hurts too much to make it….." she groaned again. "Now stop talking! You're making my head hurt worse!" There was a _thump_ as her head collided with the desk.

Percy sighed and walked over to her desk. Apparently, she'd spent the entire morning attempting to read the potion's recipe as it was still in her hand. Seeing that it wouldn't be difficult to make, Percy stopped by the apothecary department during his lunch break, intent on making the potion for his co-worker. As a friendly gesture.

Unfortunately, once he'd made a batch, half of the Ministry showed up at his desk, begging for some. By the time he finally was able to go home that night, he'd visited the apothecary twelve times and sent hung-over coworkers for more ingredients there at least twice as many times.

And of course, as though his day hadn't gone badly enough, he was stopped on his way out by Yaxley. "What's with all the commotion?"

"They should have closed today," Percy grumbled.

"Sorry?" Yaxley asked. In the past few weeks, he'd become extremely tough on anyone or anything anti-Ministry.

"I have spent the _entire day_ making hangover potions. This report is due in _two days_ and I barely got started on it!" Percy knew that he would probably regret saying that, but as frustrated as he was at this point, he didn't really care.

"Why were you making hangover potions?"

"I was trying to help a coworker," Percy replied bitterly. "Someone heard that I was making hangover potions and then everyone found out."

"And why were you trying to help them?"

Percy flinched. When you don't know the gender of the person about which you were speaking, you do not say "they" or "them" as those are plural pronouns. If you were only discussing one person, but you were unaware of what gender to use, you used "he" or "him." True, Audrey would probably call him sexist for even thinking that, but it was true. There are in fact rules in the English language, but sometimes Percy felt like the only person in the whole world who could actually speak English.

"What's wrong?"

"Sorry, your grammar. I just…..Never mind," Percy figured it would be best not to anger Yaxley anymore than he actually was. "I was just trying to be a good coworker. That's all. I actually wasn't planning on taking any time away from work for it. I made the potion while I ate my lunch."

Yaxley glared. "Well, don't let it happen again."

"Don't worry. It won't," Percy said honestly as he gathered his things to go.

"Now where you goin'?"

"Home," Percy sighed. "I need to work on this report."

XXX

"And how was your day today?" Audrey asked as she helped Percy remove his coat.

"Please don't ask me about that," Percy said, rubbing the back of his neck.

"That bad, huh?" she asked, sympathetically.

"_As_ I expected, pretty much everyone was too hung over to get any work done and I after lunch, _I spent the entire day making hangover potions! So I barely even started on this report that's __**due day after tomorrow AND THEN**__!_" He took a deep breath, in an attempt to calm down, "And then Yaxley and I were talking about a coworker of mine and he said 'them.'"

"Come again?" Audrey asked, bewildered.

"**HE DIDN'T KNOW THE GENDER OF MY COWORKER SO HE SAID 'THEM' INSTEAD OF 'HIM!'**" Percy shouted.

"He _what?_" Audrey's jaw dropped. "He works in the Ministry and he can't even speak his native language?"

"Yeah, and he has a high position…." Percy stopped and blinked. "You agree with me?"

"Well, yeah, I think if you're going to have a high-ranking position in government, you should be able to use proper grammar. 'They' is plural, damn it!"

"I _know_!"

"Or when people put a period before a quotation mark?"

"Huh?"

"Okay, if there are words following a quote, such as, 'said Bob' you wouldn't use a period in front of the second quotation. You would use a comma."

"Yes! I _hate_ when people do that! I…." Percy stopped and took time to look at Audrey. Really look at her. He thought back to Christmas, when she'd kissed him on the cheek while they stood under the mistletoe. He wondered what it'd be like to _actually_ kiss her…. "You know, I don't think I've ever told you how incredibly amazing you are."

"Never as much as I deserve, at least," Audrey grinned.

Percy grinned and leaned forward…

"Are you guys really _bonding_ over _grammar_?" Joey called from the living room.

Audrey and Percy stood back up and she smoothed back her hair. "I haven't heard you having any deep, insightful conversations with anyone lately!" she called back.

"Whatever," he grumbled.

"Um," Audrey turned back to Percy. "Well, I should go….I think Mum needed help with the….."

"Yeah, I need to work on this report," Percy said. He nodded to her and they both left the entrance in their respective directions. Very separate, respective directions.

Percy grumbled incoherently about Joey ruining everything wondered, just what would have happened if he hadn't interrupted. But no, he and Audrey were just friends. Good friends. _Really_ good friends. Yes.

And yet, the Simmons (not counting Audrey, of course) didn't understand why Audrey and Percy refused to look Joey in the eye, let alone speak to him, the rest of the night.


	13. Valentine's Day

Author's Note: As I've written a Christmas special and a semi-New Year's special, I suppose I have to write a Valentine's special as well though I hate the holiday with a fiery passion (WAY TOO COMMERCIALIZED!).

"So Valentine's Day is coming up," Percy commented to Audrey a few days before the holiday that he so usually hated, but for some reason, was looking forward to this year.

She gave him a look between utter disgust and have-you-lost-your-mind. "Valentine's Day?"

"Yes….."

"I don't celebrate Valentine's Day. I tend to sleep in and read murder mysteries on that day."

"Why murder mysteries?" Percy asked, perplexed.

"Because it's so very un-Valentine-y. Anything vaguely romantic would probably make me want to hurl," she replied. "Now let's please talk about something else. Just thinking about it makes me feel gross."

XXX

And so on that very date, Percy found himself going to work as usual and nothing seemed out of place. The Ministry of course had not allowed for any Valentine's decorations, a fact for which Percy was very grateful. While he despised the new Ministry's regime as much as the blonde witch who sat across from him and seemed to party far too hard for her own good (the one for whom he made the hangover potion), he was glad to avoid the ridiculous amounts of red and pink confetti that always seemed land in his eyes.

"Are you Percy Weasley?" a short girl with chin-length black hair stood before Percy's desk expectantly.

Percy, who had not noticed her approaching, looked up at her unsure of who she might be. "Yes, that's me."

She nodded and handed him a folded up letter, very business-like. "I was told to give you this."

Percy started to open the letter, but she stopped him.

"Not here. Anywhere but here. Don't let anyone else see that," she stared him down meaningfully for a moment before she left.

Percy blinked puzzled and slid the note into his pocket.

"What was that about?" the blonde witch at the desk across from his asked him.

"Just giving me a note," he said nonchalantly.

"I think she likes you," the witch grinned.

"I've honestly never seen her before in my entire life," Percy answered, "so I doubt that."

"I'm sure," she grinned.

Percy attempted to return to his work, but the witch continued to stare at him, amused.

"It's Weasley, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Well, Mr. Weasley….." she smirked, "you know what I think your problem is?"

"No, but I'm sure you're going to tell me."

"You're too uptight," she replied, completely ignoring his comment.

"Mmm-hmm."

"What you need is a girlfriend."

"Okay," Percy said only half-way paying attention. It took a moment for her words to register. And another moment to realize that she might be flirting with him. "Are you offering?" he asked, terrified of what she might say.

"Hell no!" the witch laughed. "But I'm just saying, if you had one, maybe you wouldn't be so uptight all the time. I mean, you're all work and no play."

"That's because you only see me at work. When we're supposed to be working."

"And your point? You never go out for drinks with any of us after work."

"Just because I don't choose to spend my free time going out with coworkers doesn't mean I'm not going out."

"And are you?"

"Well, no, but….."

"Exactly my point." Her voice suddenly went from mocking to serious, "You know, these are dangerous times that we're living in. You'd hate to see someone let each day pass by never realizing how important how someone is. That is, until it's too late. Does she know?"

"Who?"

"That girl you're always thinking about?"

Percy stopped immediately. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Well, you're thinking about someone and I didn't think you were gay so…"

"Alright, I get it," he sighed.

"You should tell her," the witch shrugged. It was at that moment that, despite working across from her for over a year, he didn't know her name. She nudged a photo on her desk so that Percy could see a blonde woman laughing in the frame. She looked maybe 25 years older than Percy's coworker, but she was still very beautiful.

"Is that your mum?" he asked.

"Was," she replied, not looking at him. "But she was a filthy Mudblood and unlike most of them, she was one of the unlucky few who didn't escape with the rest last September."

"I'm so sorry," Percy said. The words, "filthy Mudblood" seemed to stab Percy in the chest. Audrey, like this girl's mother, was Muggle-born.

"Yeah, well, like I said, these are dangerous times we live in. So you can't let people go on without telling them things they really need to hear. Because one day, you might not get to tell them."

Percy only nodded. "Yeah…"

"Alicia. Alicia Spinnet."

XXX

The moment Percy was able to leave, he hurried for the door before anyone, not even Yaxley, could stop him. Once alone in the elevator, he opened the note in his pocket (somehow it seemed heavier than just a folded up piece of paper) and scanned it. His eyes widened and a huge smile broke out on his face.

"You seem happy," Audrey commented as she, as usual, helped him take off his coat once he walked through the door.

He held up the note, "I've gotten some good news. Great news actually."

"And what might that be?" she asked as the two of them sat on the couch next to Joey.

"You remember Penelope Clearwater, right?" he asked.

Her face was blank when she answered, "She was the Head Girl, right? And a Ravenclaw?"

"Yeah, well, I've been worried about her for a while because she's a Muggleborn." He waved the note a little, "She sent a letter to me saying she's fine. See, here she says that she and her fiancé, Richard, managed to escape to Brazil," (Percy didn't notice how Audrey relaxed at the word "fiancé") "and they're now working for the Brazilian Ministry." He laughed slightly, "She said she's just glad that they both speak Portuguese."

Audrey smiled, truly smiled, "That's great! I'm glad that she and her _fiancé_ are safe. Is he Muggle born too?"

"She didn't say," Percy smiled. "I'm just glad that she's not dead."

"Funny that she contacted you on Valentine's Day, though," Audrey said, her smile intentionally plastic.

"Am I missing something here?" Joey asked.

"Penelope was an old girlfriend of mine. Obviously, I haven't seen her in years," Percy explained. "She started seeing a guy from work a few years ago, but I didn't know that they were engaged." Percy was surprised that he said this without any bitterness as he had whenever he'd spoken of Penelope before."

XXX

That evening, Percy found Audrey reading Penelope's note.

"She has freakishly neat handwriting," Audrey commented.

"Yeah, well, Ravenclaws are known for that."

Audrey dropped the note on the coffee table. "No, really. Her letters are perfectly straight! See this 't?' It makes four perfect ninety degree angles! Who writes like that!"

"And why are you so interested in her handwriting?" Percy asked, amused.

"You can tell a lot about people from their handwriting," Audrey explained.

"And what can you about me from my handwriting?"

She handed him a pen and a drawing that Joey had long since abandoned. "Write something."

Percy flipped the paper to the blank back. "What do you want me to write?"

"I don't know, anything. Um, 'My name is Percy Weasley. I'm pompous and Audrey is the single most amazing person I've ever met.'"

Percy smirked and did as he was told, only he replaced the word "amazing" with "annoying."

"Alright," Audrey said, viewing the two sentences and disregarding the insult. "You were well-trained in penmanship. I'd go as far to say you made a point to practice a lot as a kid and you were first learning to read and write."

"Guilty."

"You've very ambitious. You want to make a good impression," she frowned. "But….."

"But?"

"But you write a little too fast to be _just_ efficient. Your handwriting is a bit…loose. Not quite sloppy, but it's nearing that point. Almost like you're losing interest. Were you anybody else, I'd say that you haven't gotten that promotion that you've been wanting for a while and you've just lost hope, but you…I'd say that you've found that some things are just more important." She studied him, but for some reason, Percy didn't find it intrusive.

"Much more important," Percy replied, never breaking eye contact.

"Are you going to tell me what they are?" she asked, trying not to smile.

"No," he shook his head. "Not today."

"Why not?"

"It's Valentine's Day," he replied. "And it would such a cliché."

Audrey scowled. "I hate when I can't argue with your logic." She stood up and left the room saying, "I'm going to bed."

"But I guess we'll have a lot to talk about tomorrow," Percy called.

"Yeah, whatever!"

Percy couldn't help but grin.

Author's Note: So I really didn't want them to get together so soon after they almost did (I wanted to wait at least a chapter or two) and come on. Getting together on Valentine's Day? THAT fanfic hasn't been done a thousand times before!


	14. Random Drug Testing

Author's Note: Okay, so I am super sorry that it's been so long since I've last posted. BUT, in my defense, the last time I didn't post for-freaking-ever, I waited fifteen months before posting. This time, it's been like six. So, don't be too mad at me. Plus, this time, you get _**TWO **_chapters instead of one.

I've been meaning to write this one for a really long time, but I've been having a strange mix of pointless procrastination with writer's block despite the fact that I've had this idea since before I wrote "Camping Out in the Backyard" (Chapter 10). I really hope I didn't offend anyone with this. If I did, feel free to just skip this chapter; honestly it's just here for kicks and giggles and it doesn't really add _that_ much to the plot. That said, the only people I'm really worried about with this chapter are people younger than twelve so don't be _super_ worried about this chapter; it's not _that_ bad.

As for the title, when I was coming up with the title, I was either going to call it "Birth Control Pills" or "Ministry Searches," but then, I decided to combine the two ideas and call it "Random Drug Testing" because it touches on both of those subjects even though this chapter has absolutely nothing to do with drug testing. But it was clever. And that's what counts. And so, enjoy.

A new Ministry decree went out that the homes of all Ministry employees would be randomly searched. Upon quitting the Ministry, one's home would be immediately searched.

And nothing had made Percy more nervous in his entire life.

Sure, the Ministry trusted him well enough and he doubted that anyone suspected him of anything (other than Alicia Spinnet of course), but they even searched Runcorn's apartment for good measure.

"I just don't get it," Yaxley grumbled. "Nothing. None of these searches have shown up anything."

Percy shrugged sympathetically. "None?"

"None. Hell," he laughed bitterly, "we even searched your parents' house!"

The hairs on the back of Percy's neck stood up. "And?"

"_Nothing_," Yaxley replied exasperated. "I mean, we….." He glared at Alicia Spinnet who wasn't doing a very good job of appearing uninterested. "Go get me some tea!"

She raised her eyebrows defiantly and pulled out her wand about to conjure up a cup.

"I said '_Go_ get me some tea.' That means get outta here!"

"And here I was minding my own business trying to get work done, doing my _job_," she grumbled as she stalked off.

Percy tried not to smile. He knew very well that she got next to no work done and that before Yaxley showed up, she'd been playing Hangman with some enchanted paper that she'd probably gotten from his brothers' joke shop. "You were saying?"

"Yeah, well we searched your parents' place, but we found nothing. Nothing that would lead us to Potter or that Mudblood he hangs around with."

Percy said nothing, just pretending that he was too immersed in his work.

Yaxley scowled at Percy as though it were his fault, "That sister of yours has quite a mouth."

Percy looked up. "Hmmm?"

"Well, we were just searching her room when….."

"Why were you searching _her_ room?" Percy asked immediately regretting it.

"What?" Yaxley's eyes narrowed nervously.

"Nothing," Percy said quickly. "Old habits die hard, I guess. You know, overprotective brother thing." He desperately hoped that excuse would be enough.

"Right, well, we thought maybe she had something relating to Harry Potter in her room. Letters or something."

"Why would _she_ have letters?"

"They were close in age. She might have been friends with him. Was she?"

"I doubt it. When I still lived with them she-" Percy stopped abruptly. He'd been about to say that she couldn't talk when he was in the room because of her crush on him, but that would only get his family in more trouble.

"She what?"

Percy shrugged. "Never spent much time with Ron or any of his friends."

Alicia returned with the tea which Yaxley snatched rather forcefully. She muttered a "That was rude," as she sat down, but Yaxley didn't seem to notice.

"So we're still going to keep doing these searches even though they've never shown anything. Personally I think they're starting to become pointless. Just a way to scare people. We're going after that Spinnet girl tomorrow," he whispered to Percy. He took a sip of tea, straightened up, and turned to Alicia. In a monotone voice, he said, "Well, you're fine. Nothing was found in your flat."

"What?" Percy asked.

"Nothin'," he waved his hand impatiently. He straightened up again and said in that same monotone voice, "I was just telling Spinnet that she's passed the search. He slouched once again and returned to his regular voice, "Anyway…."

"I thought you were searching her place tomorrow," Percy said slowly.

"No, it was yesterday," Yaxley said, this time in his regular voice. He laughed, "I think you're goin' deaf."

"Must be," Percy smiled, glancing at Alicia who winked.

"Yaxley," another Ministry employee walked in. "Umbridge needs you. She says it's urgent."

Yaxley rolled his eyes and hurried off. Percy turned to Alicia. "What did you put in that tea?"

"Lemon, a dash of sugar, some mint….."

"Come on. What did you slip in his tea?"

"I can honestly promise you that I didn't _slip_ anything in his tea," she swiveled in her chair a bit, smiling, "Now if you said 'dumped' that might be another story….." She grinned.

About five minutes later, Yaxley returned grumbling things like "false alarm," and "overreacting," and the like. "Sorry about that." He took another sip of tea. "Oh, Percy. Just a heads up, we're searching your place tomorrow."

"_What?!_" Percy nearly shouted.

Alicia grabbed her wand and made a small, discreet motion.

"Your place tomorrow," Yaxley shrugged. "Not a problem is it?"

Before Percy could even think of an answer, Alicia jumped in with, "Would you like some more tea?!"

"I've got plenty here….." Yaxley looked down at his cup which had "_magically_" become next to empty. He glared and thrust the cup at her and she nearly flew off to the break room.

"That's not a problem is it, Weasley?" Yaxley asked menacingly.

"Well, I haven't exactly cleaned it in a while….."

"No one cares about cleanliness," Yaxley rolled his eyes. "I don't really want to search your place anyway, but it's the Ministry's new policy and if we don't search certain people's homes, it might look suspicious. Like we're hiding something. You understand, right?"

"Right, yeah. Of course," Percy nodded as Alicia stepped back in.

"Here's your tea," she thrust it into Yaxley's hand and he took a large gulp.

His eyes widened and he almost smiled before regaining his composure. "That's not bad."

She smiled, muttered a quiet, "Thanks," and returned to her "work" (cough, cough, hangman, cough, cough).

"So you were saying about the search," Percy said nonchalantly, hoping that whatever Alicia put into the tea would work again. "Well?"

"You still live with your great-uncle right?"

"Eh? Oh, right, yes," Percy replied, his spirit falling.

"And his-er-'friend' and her two grandkids?"

Percy nodded.

"Well, we'll be there at four tomorrow. See you then," he took another gulp of tea and walked off.

Percy fell back into his seat covering his face with his hands.

"I'm so sorry," Alicia whispered. She took a deep breath. "Lee's been living with me for the past few months and he and the Ministry haven't been on exactly the best terms. I didn't think….I mean, why would they search _your_ place and….."

"More importantly, why would it matter?" Percy finished for her. "Yeah, I know."

"That girl you're always thinking about….Is she what you're hiding?"

"Her, her parents, and her little brother…." Percy shook his head. "What am I going to do?"

Alicia walked over to his desk. She gave him a quick hug and he felt her slip something into his jacket pocket. She returned to her own desk. "That…special sweetener I use…..you build up a tolerance to it really quickly. In a matter of minutes. But after a few hours, that tolerance wears off." She nodded to him and he smiled, but he couldn't help but feel defeated.

XXX

"Hey, how was your day….?" Audrey began to ask as Percy walked through the door, but he cut her off.

"Where is everyone?"

"In the kitchen….why?"

"Emergency. Everyone in the living room. Now."

It couldn't have taken more than thirty seconds before everyone was seated, frightened of hearing whatever it was that Percy had to say.

"They're coming. Tomorrow," Percy began and Mrs. Simmons gasped. "They still think that Ignatius Weasley is still alive," he nodded to Mr. Simmons, "and that his girlfriend," to Mrs. Simmons, "and her two grandchildren," and then to Audrey and Joey, "have moved in to help take care of him. So we're going to have to redo your disguises." (The charms Audrey and Percy had placed on the family had long since worn off and Audrey's hair had also grown quite a bit.)

The four Simmons nodded.

"We can pretend that you two are simply too old to do magic anymore," he said to Mr. and Mrs. Simmons, "but Joey is going to be a problem. He looks like he ought to be Hogwarts age, but then there'd be the problem of why he's not _at _Hogwarts. And he's too tall to pretend to be too young. And if he's an adult, there's the problem of why he can't do magic." He took a deep breath. "And our plan last September, the one where he's a wizard who had magic stolen….that's just not going to work."

"Then I'll break his wand," Audrey replied.

"What?" Percy asked.

"If someone asks why he can't do magic, we'll say that _I_ was fooling around and broke his wand and we're waiting for Cassius Lignum to make him another one."

"Who?"

"Cassius Lignum. The most popular wand-maker in Australia. We are still from Australia, right?"

"Yeah…And you know who this guy is how?"

"I did a report on him while at Hogwarts."

XXX

And so the Simmons and Percy anxiously waited for four o'clock in the afternoon the next day to arrive. Ministry employees were allowed the day off the day their homes were being searched (though usually they weren't told until that morning) in order to prevent the searchers from taking anything valuable (a fair rule induced by an early incident where an employee's wife's diamond necklace disappeared and then one of the searchers wore an identical necklace to work the next day). Percy kept going over their plan over and over in his mind. Though none of the Simmons looked like themselves, Audrey and her mother kept checking everyone's appearances and making slight changes to their disguises so they'd be more believable. They also kept running all over the house, hiding anything that might seen suspicious. Audrey also insisted on temporarily transfiguring everyone's clothing to look older in her family's case and girlier in her own. Joey stayed in his room almost the whole day, only emerging to use the bathroom. Mr. Simmons, it seemed, was the only one who wasn't afraid.

"It'll all work out," he said to Percy who had begun to follow Audrey and Mrs. Simmon's suit by making sure that the photo albums still looked like cookbooks or novels or whatever and they were in the right place.

"You can't be sure of that," Percy replied turning to face him. "There's no way to know that."

"No, I can't," Mr. Simmons nodded, "but there's no point in worrying. It won't achieve anything."

"How can you just sit there?" Percy asked, not irrespectively, but genuinely bewildered.

Mr. Simmons just shrugged. "I have a good feeling, I suppose. Life's short. I've always known that. And mine has treated me especially well." He sighed. "Audrey and Joey, though. They're still young and if this doesn't turn out…." he shook his head. "But I'm grateful for everything I've had. And there's nothing I regret. Life's too short for that."

"Yeah, well, there's a lot that I regret," Percy replied.

"Like?"

"My family. I regret ever leaving them. I regret not patching things up when I had the chance. Hell, when I had the chan_ces_," he sighed. "I regret not being a better son and brother even when I still lived with them. I was always so focused on work….."

"But think about it this way," Mr. Simmons said. "If you had stayed with your family, would you have kept your job at the Ministry this long?"

Percy raised an eyebrow. "No."

"There you have it then."

"You're not trying to say that a job is worth losing my family….."

"Of course not. But if didn't have that job, what reason would you have had to be at the Ministry on September 1st?"

"No reason," Percy said, realizing what he was getting at.

"And if you hadn't been at the Ministry on September 1st….."

"Then I wouldn't have had a chance to help you escape," Percy finished for him.

"Then you wouldn't have had the chance to save our lives," Mr. Simmons corrected.

Before either of them could say anything else, the clock struck four and the fire erupted with green flames.

"Showtime," Percy muttered.

Mr. Simmons sat on the couch and stared off into space, pretending that he was suffering greatly from Alzheimer's Disease (the Simmons, excluding Audrey of course, had all been very surprised to hear that wizard's could in fact get dementia). Mrs. Simmons, as Vivian Turner, hobbled in on her walker (which Audrey had conjured) and shouted irritably when Audrey, who'd been walking behind, attempted to help her. Joey walked in, nose stuck in a novel that had been popular when Percy was at Hogwarts.

Yaxley and two other Ministry workers (whom Percy didn't know) stepped out of the fireplace. "Hey, Percy. Sorry about this, really." He nodded to the other two who proceeded to ransack the house. "Gently!" he shouted. He turned back to the family. Apologetically to Percy, "I'm afraid I'll have to question them."

"Right," Percy nodded. He'd been expecting this and so everyone had rehearsed questions that they might be asked.

Yaxley turned to Mr. Simmons. "How is he?"

Tentively, Percy sat down on the couch next to his "great-uncle." "Uncle Ignatius? Can you hear me? Do you know who I am?"

There was no reply.

Yaxley nodded. "Shame. I've heard stories 'bout the Great Ignatius Weasley. He was a great wizard in his day." Percy only nodded and Yaxley turned to Mrs. Simmons. "Well, let's start with the lady of the house."

Quietly enough to not attract attention, though not quietly enough that Yaxley wouldn't hear, Audrey said to Percy, "If this is going to take a while, I'll go put tea on." She left.

"Name?" Yaxley asked.

"Vivian Turner, officially, though my husband's been dead for over forty years so I don't see why I go back to my maiden name, Ricardo, but my children insist that I keep it 'Turner,' saying it's a disrespect to their father, as though it's any of their business…."

"Thank you, Vivian," Yaxley cut her off.

"_Vivian_?!" she shouted, aghast. "How dare you? Didn't your mother ever teach you any manners? We've only just met and you think we're already on a first name basis?" Percy bit back a smile. Mrs. Simmons was playing the batty old lady character far better than he'd expected.

"What would you like to be called?" Yaxley asked, irritated.

"Well, I suppose 'Mrs. Turner' though I haven't had a reason to be called that in over forty years and…."

"Yes, thank you, Mrs. Turner." He read over the questions he was supposed to ask and thought better of asking her age. "Birthday?"

"October 19th."

"Blood status?"

"A positive," she replied.

He sighed. "Pureblood? Half-blood?"

"Oh, I thought you were asking about my health," she chuckled slightly to herself. "I was going to hit you with my walker if you tried to ask me how many heart medicines I'm taking.

"Just answer the question, please," Yaxley sighed.

"Pureblood."

"How long have you known Mr. Weasley?"

"About nine months when he moved into the cottage."

"Mr. _Ignatius_ Weasley."

"Oh, you were talking about Iggy. That's what I call him," Mrs. Simmons, greatly enjoying her character replied. "Thirty-two years exactly, next month. We met on my daughter's birthday. The second daughter, I mean. Not the disappointing one. I mean _why_ would she want to be an actor? No money in that business! But she's going to be a _star_! Well, let me tell you, she hasn't gotten her break yet. Should have taken my advice and been a lawyer. She was on her way to it too!..."

"Thank you. That'll be all," Yaxley cut her off. He turned to Joey. "Enjoying that book?"

"Eh? Yeah, thanks."

"They all die in the end," Yaxley said.

"Have you read it?"

"No."

"Then I guess I'll just have to finish it to see whether or not that's accurate," Joey replied his eyes never leaving the page.

"Son, I have to ask you some questions!" Yaxley shouted irritated. At that moment, Audrey returned with the tea. She handed Yaxley his cup and her mother a random cup, but let Percy get his own. Percy was mildly impressed with that touch.

"Can I read while you ask me?" Joey asked.

"May," Audrey corrected.

"Eh?" Yaxley and Joey asked.

"We all know that you're capable of reading and talking at the same time, but you were asking permission," Audrey replied.

He set his book down. "Really?"

Yaxley cleared his throat. (The fake argument was turning out well.) "Name?"

"Artie."

"Artie?"

"Turner," came Joey's exasperated reply.

Yaxley viewed him for a moment and asked, "Age?"

"Twenty." Joey turned a page in his book.

"Really? You don't quite look that old."

No one even had the chance to look worried before Joey replied, "Flattery won't work on me."

"Birthday?"

"Every year."

"_When_ each year?" Yaxley asked through gritted teeth.

"June twelth."

Yaxley took a deep breath. "And how long have you been living here?"

"I dunno."

"Eleven months next Wednesday," Audrey offered.

"Yeah. What she said."

"Thank you," Yaxley nodded. "Blood status?"

"Half-blood," he replied, his eyes never leaving the page.

Yaxley raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. He turned to Audrey. "Name?"

"Lucy. Short for Lucille."

"Surname?"

"Turner. Same as my brother's," Audrey said, in an I-want-to-be-helpful-but-are-you-honestly-that-stupid tone of voice.

"Age?"

"Twenty-five." It wasn't much of a stretch. She'd be twenty-two that following April.

"Birthday?"

"May twenty-fifth. And I've lived here as long as Artie."

"Blood status?"

"Half. Same as Artie's."

Yaxley nodded. "Well, when they're done, we'll be going."

Percy was taken aback. "That's it?"

"Yeah, well, you're not doing anything illegal are you?"

"Does embezzling millions count?" Percy asked.

Before anyone could respond, the two other wizards came back in and one of them said, "We didn't find anything suspicious….except this." He tossed a small bottle to Yaxley and Audrey, seeing what it was blanched.

She gave her mother a fearful look and her mother only nodded.

"Eh, what is it?" Yaxley turned the clear bottle around a few times and grinned when he realized what was it in. Thankfully, he didn't realize that it was, in fact, a Muggle brand. "Birth control, eh?"

Audrey gasped loudly. Her face grew red as she glanced at Percy, biting her lip. Percy, understanding perfectly what she was trying to do, felt his own neck and ears grow hot. "I thought I hid that better," Audrey muttered.

"What?" Joey looked between the two of them shocked.

Yaxley laughed and smacked Percy on the back much harder than just friendly. "Ah, Percy! Didn't know you had it in you. Well, if there's nothing else…."

"Oi! What's this?!" the other wizard Percy didn't know held up the family's copy of _The Christmas Carol_. "I've never heard of it…." He opened the first page when Audrey jumped up and offered him some tea.

He took a sip and straightened up. "Yep, I remember this. Mi gran used to read this too me every Christmas."

"Are you alright?" Yaxley asked taking a sip of his own tea. He too stood up straight and said, "Well, time to go. Sorry to bother you."

"Sir?" the second wizard asked.

"What?" Yaxley snapped. "Let's go. We don't want to take up more of their time. I'm sure they have better things to do." He raised his eyebrows at Percy suggestively.

"Yes, but…."

"But nothing. I'm in charge. Let's go." And with that, the three wizards were in the fireplace which lit up with green fire once again and then they were gone.

All was silent.

All was still.

Until….

"_Who_," Audrey asked, "left _The Christmas Carol_ lying around?"

They all looked around, waiting for someone to fess up, but everyone was just as confused as the next.

Finally, Percy broke the silence. "I don't think it matters who had it last. They searched the entire house. We could have hid it in a safe under the floor in the bathroom and they probably would have found it."

"Then _why_ wasn't it enchanted to or something?" Audrey asked, still fuming.

Percy knew he had to choose his words carefully. Otherwise, he'd have to face The Wrath of Audrey. Not something that he, even as a Gryffindor, thought he could face and live to tell the tale. "It never crossed my mind. And I suppose that you didn't think of it either," he replied calmly. "We had that enchanted sweetener so it all worked out." He paused to smile slightly at Mr. Simmons and continued, "Hopefully this won't happen again, but if it does, we'll be sure to charm all of the Muggle books."

"But then we'll forget something else. Like the birth control," she turned to her parents. "Are you guys _crazy_?! Birth control?! Not just that. _Muggle _birth control?!"

"I'm sorry. I didn't think you wanted any more siblings, Audrey," her mother replied coolly.

"And you didn't think that having _Muggle _birth control would look suspicious?"

"Not nearly as suspicious as an eighty-somehting-year-old woman being pregnant."

"Why didn't you tell me?! I could have charmed it to look like heart medicine or something!"

"And you don't think that conversation would have been a little bit awkward?"

"AND THE STORY WE JUST MADE UP _WASN'T?!_ If it weren't for Percy we probably all would have gotten killed!" She calmed down and turned to the man of the hour himself. "Brilliant acting by the way. I thought I was the only one who could make myself blush on command."

"Oh, yeah, right. It's….it's a Weasley thing," Percy felt the back of his neck grow warm again.

Audrey gave him a strange look which could have been appraising or approving, Percy couldn't tell.

"Well, this has been fun," Joey said awkwardly. "Can I go back to looking like me again?"

XXX

On this unusually warm March evening, Percy found himself sitting on the front porch, staring the first few stars that had appeared that night.

"Hey," Audrey said, sitting in the chair next to him. "What's up?"

"I'm just realizing how close we came to being caught," Percy replied, his eyes never leaving the sky.

"Funny how when we're about to do something, it seems so scary, but once we do it, it feels like nothing," Audrey mused. "But I guess it's not over is it?" she asked.

"I was thinking," Percy sighed and looked down at Audrey; he found that it was impossible to look directly at her so he looked at his lap, "maybe it's time for Uncle Ignatius to die."

"What?" Audrey asked.

"Maybe….maybe it's time that we set the records straight and we have a small funeral and the four of you go home to Australia. Or anywhere for that matter. But after today….it's not safe. I don't know why I didn't try to sneak you somewhere once Joey got better." He shook his head. "I should have…."

"Stop it, Percy," Audrey said. "We chose to stay here. And I understand if we've overstayed our welcome…"

"Of course not!"

"Then why do you want us to leave?" she asked.

"It's not safe for you here!"

"And it'll be safe somewhere else? You think it'll be safe for us to somehow go abroad? You think the Ministry won't notice?"

"Other people have done it…."

"And other people have gotten caught," she snapped. "You may not believe this, but you're not the only one in this house who reads _The Daily Prophet_."

They were silent for a little while before Percy said, "Just think about it. I don't want you to go, but I'd rather know that you were safe."

"I'll tell my family," she said slowly. "And if they want to go they can, but I'm not going anywhere."

Percy just smiled.

"Hey, Percy?"

"Hmm?"

"You can't actually make yourself blush on command, can you?"

"If you tell anyone…."

"It's a secret I'll take to my grave."

XXX

When Audrey walked back into the house, she found her entire family looking…."busy" in a stiff, I-grabbed-the-first-book-I-saw-so-you-wouldn't-get-suspecious kind of way. Her father was reading last week's paper, her mother was reading a dictionary, and Joey was exactly half-way through the book Percy loaned him (the book he'd started that morning). "Well, goodnight!" she said, irritated.

"Night," they all replied in unison.

Once she was gone, Joey groaned, setting the book down. "I hate spoilers."


	15. Arthur

"So, what was that sweetener, anyway?" Percy asked Alicia once he'd finished telling her the story. Due to a "medical emergency" (she claimed that she'd come down with an extreme case of House Elf Flu, but Percy wondered if maybe the time she'd taken off had something to do with the fact that she was harboring a fugitive) and once her week off was over, there was always someone around. Finally, Percy and Alicia were alone and he was able to tell her about the search.

"It's actually one of your brothers' inventions," she grinned. "You see, you can Confound someone with a spell, but they wanted to see if you could put the Confoundus charm into a potion. Better yet, into something no one would find suspicious like tea sweetener."

"I'll be sure to tell them that they're brilliant, whenever I see them next….." his voice trailed off.

Soon their shifts ended and Percy and Alicia said their 'See you tomorrow's and such.

Percy stepped into the elevator and took a sip of his tea. The lift stopped and a balding, redhead man entered stepped. He refused to make eye-contact with Percy who only felt awkward. Should he say something? Should he ignore him? Should he…..?

"Afternoon," Percy nodded at his father.

Arthur Weasley looked up, as though unsure if someone else in the lift had said something although the two were alone. He gulped suspiciously. "Good afternoon."

There was a pause where neither of them knew what to say. Percy broke it by asking, "How's Mum?"

"Fine, fine," Arthur said quickly.

"And Fred and George?"

"Fine. Business doing well as usual."

"Good. It's funny, I haven't ever actually been in their shop," Percy realized with regret.

"Oh, well, um," Arthur looked around once again as though afraid someone were listening in, "they ran into some trouble a few weeks ago. Had to take some anti-Death Eater products off the shelves. They were fined…twice the cost of rent for a year."

"That's terrible," Percy said genuinely concerned.

"Of course, it didn't hurt them too badly financially, but…."

"That's it though, right? Just a fine? Nothing more serious?" Percy asked before father could finish.

"Oh, no they're fine."

Percy nodded. "Does Ron still have splattergroit?" he asked with a slight smile.

"Eh? Oh! Yes, it's terrible." Arthur smiled back.

"Has his condition gotten any better?" Percy asked. Both of them knew what he meant was, _Have you heard anything from him?_ Percy was smart enough to know that he youngest brother was somewhere off with Harry Potter.

"No, he's the same, but at least he hasn't gotten any worse," Arthur said gravely which Percy took as, _We haven't heard any good news, but we haven't heard any bad news either._

Percy nodded. "And everyone else?"

Arthur sighed. "Mostly the same. Charlie's back with us right now and Ginny's off at school. Bill just got married…."

"I heard about that," Percy nodded. "When was the wedding?"

"Over the summer, at the end of July," Arthur answered.

"And my new sister-in-law is…..?" Percy asked.

"Fleur Delacour," Arthur answered.

"French girl? Was in the Tri-Wizard Tournement three years ago?"

"That's the one."

"And how's Mum taking it?"

"Better," Arthur took a deep breath. "Ever since Bill got attacked last year….."

"_Bill got attacked?!_" Percy asked, alarmed, but just then the doors to the lift opened and a few more Ministry workers entered.

A few 'Good afternoon,'s were exchanged and Percy and Arthur fell back into the stiff silence they'd been in before Percy inquired about Molly.

XXX

Audrey met Percy at the front door as he stepped into the house.

"How was work?" she asked as she helped him take his cloak off.

"Fine," Percy said distractedly.

"Something wrong?" her eyebrows furrowed as she hung the cloak on the rack. "Nothing about the search a few weeks ago?"

"No," Percy sat down on the couch. "It's just that….." (Audrey sat down next to him.) "I ran into my dad today."

"Your dad? Did you say anything to him?"

"Yeah. Bill got attacked last year," Percy said almost frantically. "I've missed so much….." He buried his head into his hands.

"Bill….your oldest brother?" she asked, and he nodded. "What happened to him?"

"I don't know," Percy shook his head.

"Well, do you know if he's going to be okay? If there will be any long-term affects?"

"I don't know," Percy looked up at her, terrified.

"Just ask your dad about it tomorrow," Audrey said. "I'm sure everything's okay. Now come on. I think supper's almost ready." She took his hand and dragged him into the kitchen.

But Percy didn't see Arthur the next day. He wanted to ask his dad everything, but he never saw him. Discouraged, at the end of the day he vowed to find an excuse to stop by his father's department the next day, but Yaxley came up to him and informed him of his father's mysterious disappearance.

"He didn't show up to work today and when they went to search his house, he wasn't there. None of them were. They just packed up and left."

Trying to sound uninterested, Percy merely nodded. "And your point?"

"Just glad that you didn't turn out like the rest of your family," Yaxley grinned greasily and walked off.

Percy forced himself to keep a blank, emotionless face until he was safely at home. Once home, he said nothing to anyone, not even Audrey though she tried very hard to pry some information from him. Finally she gave up and just hugged him until he was finally able to whisper, "Where ever they are, I hope they're safe."


	16. Thunder Storms

Author's Note: Years ago, I had a dream that I was trapped on an island of cannibals who wanted to sacrifice me. I'd go into more detail, but it's the exact same dream Joey had so it would be kind of pointless for me to tell it twice.

Percy grew quiet in the days that followed his family's disappearance. Though the Simmons did their best to cheer him up, he simply could not find joy in anything. This is not to say that he was angry or depressed all the time, he simply was quiet and when he found something to be happy about, it didn't last for long.

No matter what he did or who he asked, he didn't hear anything about his family, not even Bill. However, he did hear rumors that Harry Potter (or "Undesirable Number One"), Hermione Granger ("that Mudblood 'e 'angs around with") and Percy's own brother, Ron, ("an' that Ginger, your brother, aint it?") had almost been caught at Malfoy Mannor, but had somehow escaped. The rumor that Ron had been spotted would explain why his family had disappeared and it actually comforted him. If they had caught Harry, Ron, or Hermione, everyone would know about it. And since they hadn't heard anything, clearly they not been caught. More importantly, if there were rumors about their whereabouts, they might still be alive.

Audrey was sure that those were just rumors; no one could _actually_ escape from Malfoy Mannor she believed. "You haven't met my brother," Percy told her.

But despite the fact that it seemed that nothing was going right, life went on. Audrey and Joey argued while Mr. and Mrs. Simmons refereed, Joey had set on completely redecorating the house in his spare time, Alicia showed up to work hung-over, Yaxley ranted about Mrs. Yaxley (who may or may have been having an affair), Mrs. Simmons' cooking was delicious as always, and, most importantly, everyday Audrey would help Percy take his coat off after work and ask him how his day went.

"How was your day?" Audrey asked, hanging his coat on the hanger.

"Same as usual," Percy replied. "Ummm, Alicia had a mild hangover this morning," he said, trying to find something interesting.

"Doesn't she always?" Audrey asked amused. As Percy had told Alicia much about Audrey, he'd also told her much about Alicia and he couldn't tell who wanted to meet who more.

"Not always," Percy defended. "Sometimes she's still drunk!"

The two laughed as they walked into the kitchen where Mr. Simmons was trying to teach Joey to cook roast beef.

Mrs. Simmons tossed the salad and viewed her husband and son amused. "They've been arguing all day. And it seems like there are actually worse cooks than you, Audrey, out there. In this family even."

Audrey scowled. "Just because, I get distracted easily, does not mean that I'm a bad cook. I'm actually pretty good when I don't burn the food."

It was true. When she didn't forget that she had something on the stove, Audrey's food almost rivaled Percy's mother's. Almost.

"When you don't burn the food," Mrs. Simmons repeated laughing. Just then, Mr. Simmons and Joey began shouting again and Mrs. Simmons ran over to go referee.

Seeing as the arguing made the kitchen feel rather crowded, Percy and Audrey left to sit in the living room.

"Was it this hard when _you_ learned to cook?" Percy asked.

"I don't remember it being," Audrey mused, "but I guess that teaching someone to cook is always frustrating."

"I don't think it was for me either," Percy nodded, sitting down. "I guess I figured that the sooner I made my parents happy, the sooner I could go read again."

Audrey wasn't sure what to think of that. "That sounds….mature…."

"It wasn't. I did nothing but what I thought I was supposed to do. I studied my entire childhood because I wanted to get a better job than my dad because I didn't realize that there were more important things than money," he said bitterly. "I never really spent any time with my siblings because I thought I was better than them. I never…." He choked, unable to say more.

Audrey hugged him. "It'll be okay, Percy."

"How can you say that?" he asked, though it made him feel better. "What if I never see them again? What if I….what if I never get to tell them I love them?"

"They know. And you will see them again. I have a good feeling about it."

"And what was your grade in Divination?"

"'Acceptable' the first year. I didn't take it after that. Trelony was crazy."

XXX

"And just before I hit the ground," Joey said, "I woke up."

Percy blinked. "Why were you trapped on an island of cannibals?"

"I don't know! You know how when you dream something, the dream starts in the middle and never at the beginning?" Joey shrugged.

"Yeah, and _why _did you have a teddy bear with you?" Audrey asked. "You haven't had one of those in years."

"It was part of the sacrifice," Joey shrugged. "Apparently, to please the gods, they needed to kill someone in a cradle with a teddy bear."

"Another thing," Percy raised his hand. "How were you running away from them if you were in the cradle the whole time?"

"Dunno. I just wanted to go forward really fast and the cradle moved. It was actually kind of like Fred Flintstone's car."

At the Muggle reference, Percy immediately turned to Audrey who said, "I'll tell you later."

"Any other questions?"

"Yeah, if they were cannibals, were they actually going to eat you or were you just a sacrifice? Because I've read about some of the more famous cannibalistic societies in history and…."

Audrey elbowed Percy in the ribs.

"I dunno," Joey shook his head. "But if they were going to kill me anyway, I guess it doesn't really matter, does it?"

The three sat there for a moment before bursting out laughing. Suddenly, Audrey sat up straight. "Joey, what was the weather forecast?"

"I think it was in the sixties," Joey said. "Why?"

A wicked little grin spread across her face. "Because I think it would be a perfect night to take Percy camping the backyard."

Percy couldn't help but grin at Audrey's memory. He himself had thought of that conversation often, but as the months had passed, he'd nearly forgotten. But, always being the practical one, he had to interject (rather half-heartedly). "Actually, I don't think it would be."

"Why not?!" both Simmons asked scandalized.

"It's supposed to rain tonight."

The two groaned and Audrey made some comment about how Joey needed to pay more attention to these things to which he replied that if it were so important to her, she ought to pay more attention herself.

XXX

Sure enough, that night it rained. And it rained. But it did not just rain. No, it poured. And thundered. And hailed. And had the family not completely rebuilt the house the previous November, the little cottage would have no doubt fallen in.

Had they been living in a Muggle house, the power would have gone out and the rain would have put out the fire in the fireplace. Luckily, there were two people possessing magic living in that house which prevented any of that from happening.

Joey, whose bedroom had been the worst for storms as child, fell asleep straightaway as it had come to the point where storms worked as lullabies for him.

Mr. Simmons had never had any trouble with storms and fell asleep as he normally did.

Mrs. Simmons, being a mother, had been so used to not sleeping properly in so long that ever night she fell asleep well, regardless of the circumstances.

Percy, after a long, hard week at work, fell asleep without any trouble, planning on sleeping in as late as nine the following morning.

But there is one person who has yet to be mentioned. But the focus shall remain on Percy for the moment.

It was likely around midnight or one or two or something when Percy awoke with a strange, sudden craving for tea. The craving was so strong, in fact, that he could have sworn that he could smell the scent wafting through the air. He tiredly stumbled down the stairs, hoping that he wouldn't kill himself while wondering half-asleep in the dark only to find that the living room light was still on and the room wasn't empty as he'd expected. Wrapped up in a blanket, Audrey sat on the couch, clutching a cup of tea.

"Audrey? What're you doing down here?"

"Couldn't sleep," she said quieter than usual gesturing to the window out of which the storm was still raging on. Almost as if on cue, lightning lit up the sky and the house shook with thunder. "I don't understand how anyone can sleep through all that. Anyway, what are you doing here?"

Percy viewed her puzzled for a moment then a grin spread across his face. "You're not…no, never mind."

"I'm not what?" she asked suspiciously, taking another sip of her tea.

"You're not _afraid _of thunderstorms are you?" he asked, still grinning.

"Of course not!" she snapped a little too quickly which only caused Percy to start laughing. "It's not funny! Storms are…." The house shook with thunder once again and Audrey winced.

Percy stopped laughing. "I'm sorry. It's just…you. That you're afraid of thunder." He strode over to the kitchen and poured himself a cup of tea.

"I'm not afraid of thunder. Thunder doesn't kill people. It just prevents them from getting to sleep. Lightning kills people. And what's 'it's just you' supposed to mean?" she asked, accusingly.

"You just don't seem like you would get scared of that sort of thing," he shrugged sitting down next to her. "I mean, are you scared of mice?"

"No, they're tiny."

"Bugs?"

"Miniscule."

"Germs?"

"Microscopic."

"Snakes?"

"Ehhh, I'm wary of the poisonous ones. But the other ones don't really bother me."

"Heights?"

"Only if I'm unusually likely to fall."

"See what I mean?" Percy asked. "You're not scared of things that scare most people, but you're scared of thunderstorms. You don't find that a little ironic?"

Audrey grinned. "I guess so…." Thunder shook the house once again and Audrey winced once more.

"Hey," Percy placed his hand on hers. "Do you have any idea how many protective spells there are on this house? I'm pretty sure the worst thing that could possibly happen to us would be the roof leaking."

Audrey smiled. "Thanks, Percy." There was a silent moment before Audrey's smile melted away and she said, "But if you ever tell anyone, I'll….."

Percy laughed again (a sound that Audrey decided she quite liked very much). "Would I?"

They sat, smiling at each other in a comfortable silence for a little while, when suddenly that moment was over.

Suddenly, their lips met and everything was perfect. To this day, Percy could not tell you who kissed who, only that that moment was perfect. And ended far too quickly.

Audrey pulled back, almost panicking. "I'm sorry, Percy." She took a deep breath, "It's not that I don't like because I do, I really do, but this won't work out. You mean too much to me to ruin it by being in a relationship that probably won't work out anyway. I mean, I've read about people: patients, kidnap victims, people stranded in the middle of nowhere, or whatever who think that they've fallen in love with the doctor who saved them or the person who rescued them or whatever when they're really not actually in love, they're just so relieved that someone saved them and I really don't want that to happen to us, because you mean too much to me and…."

"Audrey," Percy cut her off, "shut up." And he kissed her once more.

Audrey pulled back again, an amused look on her face. "Since when do you screw logic and go by what you're feeling?"

"Since when do you over analyze everything?" he countered.

"Touché," she grinned before kissing him again.


	17. Two Witnesses

Author's Note: I am so incredibly sorry. I truly am. While I don't believe in excuses, allow me to please explain why at first it took me so long to update. Last spring, we got a new computer and then I lost my flashdrive on which I had the beginning of every remaining Audrey Weasly chapter. No really, I had the beginning of the last chapter written. However, once I lost that, I figured it would only take me a little to start writing again. Obviously, that didn't work out. Of course, this is not at all a good enough reason to completely cease writing, but I always fully intended to return to writing this story. Don't worry: I haven't forgotten about you guys. There. Now that that's been said, onto writing.

Alicia's lip curled into an "I-knew-it-I-knewit-Iknewit" smile.

"Oh, be quiet," Percy snapped, not in the least bit unpleased.

"May I say, mmmm, 'I told you so'?" she grinned.

Percy grinned, but said nothing. He'd just relayed to her the weekend's events.

Alicia's smile faded. She rubbed her throat and it was then that Percy noticed a new silver chain hanging from it. Normally, he would have thought nothing of it except that she seemed to be fingering the part of the chain just above its pendant which she kept tucked in her blouse.

"Everything alright?" he asked.

"Hmmm?" she asked startled. She seemed to realize what she'd been doing and immediately dropped the chain, careful never to reveal the pendant. "Yes, I'm fine."

Percy would have left it at that, but she continued, "Can I ask you a favor?"

"Sure," Percy was about to say, "anything," but such a word held much weight nowadays.

Alicia looked around, making sure that no one was listening. Satisfied that there was no one around and more importantly no one to pay them any mind, she pulled the chain from her blouse. Percy had just enough time to see that it was a simple diamond ring before she replaced it down her blouse.

It took a moment for the ornament's significance to register. "You're not…?"

"Yes," Alicia nodded. "Lee asked me this morning. Well," she sighed. "Officially."

"Officially?"

"We've been talking about it for quite some time, but I've always said that it could wait until after the war. When we could have a proper wedding, you know? Besides. Who could we get to officiate in a time like this? Almost anyone who wouldn't turn us in is in hiding himself. But…but Lee just kept asking, what if there _is_ no after-the-war? What if…what if we get caught or…one or both of us…what if we miss our chance waiting for a better one?" She seemed incapable of saying the word "die" which Percy could certainly understand.

"Right. And after the war you can always have a large anniversary party. I know it's not the same, but why wait?"

Alicia gave him an appreciative smile.

"But what do you need me for? I can't officiate if that's what you need…"

"Oh, no!" Alicia laughed. "While he is in hiding, Kingsley is still technically qualified. What we need are witnesses to sign the form. Two in fact. Originally we were going to get your brothers, but…" she winced sympathetically, "even _we_ don't know where your family is hiding."

"So you want me officially witness your wedding. Admitting that I was in fact there. And have a general idea where Lee Jordan, a fugitive, is hiding," Percy nodded. "Sure. But I'm only one person. Who else are you getting?"

"I was thinking about that…Audrey's been trapped in that house for what…eight, nine months now?"

XXX

If ever asked how he imagined his first official date with Audrey Simmons would go, Percy would have honestly replied that he hadn't given much thought to the matter. After all, who really spends time pondering about taking one of the fugitives living in your house out to dinner and perhaps an evening at the theater? No one. Anyone hiding fugitives in his or her house rarely spends much if any time pondering something as _normal_ as a date. But here he was, asking Audrey Simmons out on a date, a wedding no less.

Even if he had spent much time considering their first official date, Percy was sure that it wouldn't involve signing a marriage license even if it wasn't their own. Not that Percy had much trouble thinking about himself and Audrey signing marriage licenses, but that was highly beside the point.

"Hi," Audrey greeted Percy at the door (which was usual) and helping him remove his coat (which was also usual) and with a peck on the lips (which was a recent development that Percy was sure he could quite quickly place in the "usual" routine category). "Something on your mind?"

"Do you want to go to a wedding?"

"What?" Audrey, asked, nearly dropping his coat.

Quickly explaining the situation, Percy decided that using the word "wedding" casually with a girl he'd only _just_ admitted having feelings for might not be in anyone's best interest. The two sat on the couch just as Percy was finishing.

"You want me to go out into public? You want me to leave this cottage?" Audrey asked confused. When Percy didn't contradict her, she cried, "Yes! Of course I will! But what about my parents and Joey?"

Percy silently cursed himself. He'd completely forgotten them. "Well…"

"They'll be fine for a few hours, won't they?" Audrey asked, hoping Percy was more confident in this idea than she. At the end of the day, as much as she wanted to leave that cottage, she would never do anything to endanger her family and leaving them without magical protection could very well do that.

"Oh, just go the wedding!" her mother snapped.

The couple jumped, not realizing that both of Audrey's parents stood in the kitchen doorway.

"We'll be fine for one evening," Mr. Simmons rolled his eyes. "Honestly, we're Muggles, not children…"

XXX

The wedding only lasted long enough for a quick exchange of vows and five hands to sign a piece of parchment. In all honesty, Percy felt cheated.

Cheated that his good friend, Alicia, didn't have the large wedding he knew she wanted and deserved.

Cheated that, even though neither the bride nor the groom had done anything wrong, they were forced to marry in secret.

Cheated that, after eight and a half months of hiding, _this_ is what Audrey got to go out and see.

Cheated that, no matter how measly the wedding had been, there were many who weren't lucky enough to have even that.

Cheated that there were some who never would.

"Well, that was fun," Audrey commented, just before they Apparated home.

Once his head stopped spinning, Percy replied, "You don't have to say that just for me. I understand."

"No, really. Who really needs a big wedding?" Audrey took his arm as the two strode down back to the house. It seemed that the Simmons had left every light on in Percy and Audrey's absence. The cottage seemed to glow in the twilight. "A marriage is a marriage, simple as that. It's more about the next hundred years than having a big party anyway."

Percy grinned. Just like Audrey to look on the bright side when he least expected it of her.

"Besides," she let go of his arm and walked ahead, "I'd much rather spend money on the honeymoon than wedding, wouldn't you." Grinning she skipped into the house.

Percy stopped in his tracks, unsure of whether or not to take that as an innuendo, a pass at him, or just a simple comment.


	18. Birthday Cake

Date: 18th April

Time: 7:58 PM

Location: Uncle Ignatius's Cottage

Percy Weasley had rarely felt so satisfied with himself. Normally he always had this little voice in the back of his head saying, "You could do better!" or "If you'd spent more time and effort on that, it would have turned out better!" but now, now, Percy was just content with what he'd accomplished. And what he'd accomplished was the biggest smile on Audrey's face that he'd ever seen.

Mr. and Mrs. Simmons had retreated to the front porch to enjoy the warm evening. Joey was in the library reading one of Ignatius Weasley's novels. ("Wizards read _fiction_?!" he'd shouted when he found a murder mystery among the late wizard's collection; "Why wouldn't they?" Audrey had ever so irritably replied.) And so, Audrey and Percy were left alone in the living room which bothered them in no way at all.

"How did you get such a huge cake, right now," Audrey shoved a large bite of red velvet birthday cake into her mouth, "what with the strict rations and all?"

"It was nothing," Percy shrugged. In fact, he'd had to go to the black market to acquire that much of that many ingredients for that immensity of dessert. "I know a guy."

Audrey shook her head. "Well, however you did it, thank you! I've _never_ had this much cake for my birthday before!"

"It was really nothing," Percy smiled again.

Date: 16th April

Time: 9:46 AM

Location: Percy's desk at the Ministry of Magic

"Something on your mind?" Alicia asked.

"Eh?" Percy asked distracted. "Oh! No, just…just thinking."

"About?"

Out of habit as much as out of caution, Percy looked both ways before speaking. "Audrey's birthday is in two days."

"Oooh! I love birthdays," Alicia's eyes lit up.

"Yeah, but…I'm not sure what to do for it. I mean, what do you do for your girlfriend's birthday when you've only been together a few weeks and you also happen to be hiding her and her family in your house because there's a war on and if they left the house, they'd most likely be killed."

"The first year is always difficult," Alicia nodded.

Percy grinned. "What do you get someone at a time like this? I don't want to get her something useless, but…" He groaned.

"Well…I've heard that you shouldn't spend your money on things so much as experiences. Maybe you could use that mentality somehow."

Percy nodded. "I'll work on that."

Date: 16th April

Time: 5:34 PM

Location: One of the few bakeries not yet closed on Diagon Alley

"You've _got_ to be kidding me!" Percy cried. "I've been in line for half-an-hour!"

"Not my problem!" the baker grumbled. "These new Ministry rations. Can't get nothing anymore."

Percy was very much tempted to correct the man's grammar, but thought better of it. "Look, my girlfriend's birthday is Saturday! This is a _bakery_! How can you not have something as basic as red velvet cake?"

"Don't have nothing much but bread anymore," the man snapped. "Now we're closing soon so…"

Percy stalked out of the bakery furious. He took a deep breath. He glanced around. On one hand, he was a Ministry official who ought to set a better example. On the other hand, he didn't care in the least bit. On the first hand, he wouldn't be doing Audrey or her family much of a service if he got caught doing anything illegal. On the second hand, if he _did_ break the (completely stupid, by the way) law a little, he could make Audrey happy.

Seeing that there was no one around, Percy made his decision and he marched on.

Date: 18th April

Time: 7:59 PM

Location: Uncle Ignatius's Cottage

"This is delicious," Audrey shoved more cake in her mouth. How anyone could consume that much cake in that little time without anything to drink was completely beyond Percy, but as long as she was happy, so was he.

"I'm glad you like it."

"No, really. Mum is a good cook and all, but you're like a professional chef!"

"…Thank you?"

Date: 16th April

Time: 7:48 PM

Location: Uncle Ignatius's

"So, why were you so late home today?" Joey asked Percy.

"Reasons," was all he replied.

"Don't say that. Audrey says that all the time and it's annoying," Joey scowled. The two of them were in the library looking for the fourth novel in a wizard murder mystery series with which Joey had become, and apparently Old Ignatius Weasley had been, obsessed.

Percy sighed. "Can you keep a secret?"

"Sure," Joey shrugged. His eyes narrowed. "What _kind_ of a secret?"

"The kind that you can't tell your sister because it'll ruin her birthday surprise," Percy dragged a stool over to the self in front of which they were standing.

"Yeah! What are you getting her?"

"_Sshh! Keep your voice down!_" Percy hissed. "I'm making her a red velvet cake."

Joey's face fell. "That's it?"

"Sorry to disappoint you," Percy stepped on the stool and reached up to pluck the book from the shelf. He handed it to Joey, "Next time I'll have a better secret."

"That's not it," Joey rolled her eyes. "It's Audrey. You can't do something _boring_ for her birthday."

"_Boring?!_ Do you have any idea how much work I'm going through just to get the _ingredients_ to make her a cake? I spent a fortune on the black market and I'm not entirely sure whether or not that bloke is going to come through or not. He was rather shady." Percy stepped off the stool and carried it back to the window where he'd found it. "Besides, what with the war going on…"

"Why are you going to so much work for her?" Joey asked suspiciously.

Percy didn't meet his eyes. "No reason. It's her birthday."

"And what about the rest of our birthdays?"

When Percy didn't answer fast enough, Joey just laughed. "Does she know?"

"Know what?" Percy asked. He could feel the back of his neck slowly getting warmer.

"Isn't it obvious?" Joey grinned. "That you're madly in love with her?"

Percy suppressed a smile. "Nothing leaves this room, right?"

Joey's grin grew. "Right."

"She doesn't know the half of it."

Date: 18th April

Time: 8:05 PM

Location: Uncle Ignatius's Cottage

"Yahhh-Alrogh'?" Audrey managed to ask between bites. She swallowed. "You alright?"

"Yeah," Percy smiled. "Just lost in thought, I guess." Percy had realized just a moment too late that he'd been staring at her.

Audrey grinned, leaning her head against his shoulder. "You're probably regretting this decision aren't you?"

"What decision?" he glanced at her before resting his head atop hers.

"All this cake. You probably weren't expecting it to be attacked to violently." She sighed dramatically. "A lady isn't supposed to show any flaws until the…I don't know…twentieth date maybe?"

"Not for a second. And since when do you act like a proper young lady?"

She tried to swat him, failed as she was leaned up against him which only made him laugh.

Date: 17th April

Time: 6:04 PM

Location: Nocturne Alley

Percy had been waiting in front of the shops for over half an hour and the guy still hadn't shown up. He was about ready to leave and accept the fact that he'd wasted seventeen galleons when a loud _CRACK_ startled him.

A large, bald man stood before him. He was not that tall Percy realized, maybe an inch or so shorter than Percy, but the size of his bulging muscles and the menacing look on his face gave the impression of largeness. "Problem?" the man growled.

Percy stood up straight, realizing that he'd been staring. "Are you Baldwin?"

"Who's askin'?" the man asked.

"Weasley. Percy Weasley. I came here yesterday. Do you have the ingredients?" Once again Percy was struck by the sheer oddness that he was shopping on the black market to acquire a birthday cake.

The man half-lumbered-half-stalked into his shop. Percy, unsure of what he was supposed to do, hesitated for a moment before following him into the shop. The man grunted at Percy. He placed three large boxes on the counter behind which he stood. Percy reached for them, but the man stopped him. "Money first."

Percy wondered if the man was capable of forming sentences consisting of more than two words. "I gave you more than half yesterday."

"You're point?"

Percy sighed a pulled out his wallet. He waved the remaining galleons in front of the man's face and placed them on the counter. The man slid the boxes towards Percy. Percy picked up the boxes and attempted to leave, but Baldwin spoke again. "Weasley."

Percy turned to face Baldwin, suddenly alert. What if this was a trap? What if the Ministry was following him? What if he'd just doomed Audrey and her family? Would he be able to warn them before too late?

"I know your brothers. Gave me a discount at their joke shop in exchange for cheaper pastries."

And then Percy recognized him. This man, Baldwin, had owned a bakery just two stores down from Weasley's Wizard Weezes. And now he was reduced to smuggling on the black market. "I'm so sorry."

The man grunted. "Not your fault," and stalked off to the back.

Percy wasn't so sure.

Date: 18th April

Time: 8:07 PM

Location: Uncle Ignatius's Cottage

Audrey leaned over and pecked Percy on the corner of his mouth. "You had icing on your face," she said as an explanation.

Percy nodded and sighed contently.

Date 18th April

Time: 6:03 AM

Location: Uncle Ignatius's Cottage

"You must really like her," Joey said and Percy jumped.

He'd been trying to sneak the cake ingredients into the kitchen and (silently) bake her cake without anyone noticing. How he would hide the cake until that evening was a still mystery to him, but he wasn't concerned about that right now.

"What are you doing up so early?" Percy hissed.

"I could ask you the same thing, but I already know," Joey walked past him smirking.

Percy was struck by how often Joey did that as though they were only fourth-years which, Percy suddenly realized, Joey would have been had he gone to Hogwarts. Which of course caused Percy to feel another twinge of guilt about how this war was affecting people so young.

"You _could_ help instead of acting like a ten-year-old," Percy grumbled.

"That's why I came down here."

And so they baked.

And baked.

And baked.

The boxes Percy had picked up yesterday were in fact enchanted so that they may fit far more ingredients than the external size of the box would suggest.

Which meant that the cake had to be baked in sections on account of average-sized state of the oven. Even with the enchanted over that could completely cook a frozen turkey in under ten minutes, Percy and Joey had their work cut out for them. About a fourth of the way through, Joey remarked that the kitchen was _not big enough _to hold that much of _anything_ and thus began icing the cake in the dining room.

Percy, who'd been so occupied hurriedly baking as fast as he could (honestly, how much did he _buy?_), hardly noticed what Joey had been doing with the cake sections and icing until he realized how much cake had accumulated on the kitchen counter without Joey taking it into the dining. Grumpily marching out to chastise Joey for not keeping up his end of the work, Percy stopped dead in his tracks.

In front of him stood a five-meter, half-complete, to-scale model of Hogwarts entirely made out of red velvet cake and chocolate icing.

"How did you…?"

"I thought it was getting boring just a giant block held together with icing. And then I realized these slabs of cake were a lot like large bricks so I thought, 'Why not?'" Joey grinned proudly. "It's not perfect, but it'll do for short-notice."

"But you've never even been there!" was all Percy could say.

"No, but I've seen pictures. And Audrey's explained it well enough that I might as well have," Joey smirked at Percy's awe. "You'd better get back to work. It's nearly nine o'clock. And this is one of the only two days of the year that Audrey's even a little bit a morning person." (The other of course being Christmas.)

Percy nodded still in shock.

Date 18th April

Time: 10:06 AM

Location: Uncle Ignatius's Cottage

Audrey glanced at the clock and sighed. It was probably time that she officially woke up. She'd been up for a while now, but she wasn't in the mood for pretending that it wasn't her birthday. It was a big birthday-22-but that didn't mean she didn't want to celebrate it. But there was a war going on and she and her family were fugitives. And she was being childish anyway, but…she'd better go downstairs before they started to worry about her.

And she went downstairs to one of the best surprises in her life up to that point: her family and Percy standing around a seven-meter (Percy had evidently charmed the ceilings to be much taller than usual) red-velvet, chocolate covered Hogwarts.

Percy and Joey had finished the cake only forty-two minutes before she'd come downstairs and they and Mr. and Mrs. Simmons had spent most of that time debating on how to pose around the cake.

"What is this?" she asked?

Her parents just smiled. "It was those two," her mom pointed two Percy and Joey.

Audrey looked between the two of them.

"It was Percy's idea," Joey grinned. That in itself was a shock: Joey giving someone else credit.

"Joey designed the castle," Percy clarified, "I just baked the cake."

Not even a little bit fooled by the obvious downplaying of the birthday present, Audrey through her arms around Percy's neck. "Thank you!" The two of them stayed there just a little bit too long before they realized that her family was still there and still didn't technically know they were together.

Audrey stepped back only slightly less awkwardly than Percy felt.

"Dig in!"

Date: 18th April

Time: 8:09 PM

Location: Uncle Ignatius's Cottage

"Thank you," Audrey said. "This was sort of the best birthday surprise ever."

"You're joking, right?"

"Nope. I can honestly say that I've never had a seven meter tall castle of red velvet cake."

"Six meters."

"Oh, well never mind then. If it's only _six_ meters, then I've had _much _better presents."

Percy sighed. "We are going to be eating cake for _weeks_."

"Days," Audrey corrected him. "Red velvet is my favorite." That much was obvious; she'd eaten _nothing _all day but cake. Lots and lots of cake.

Right arm wrapped around her shoulders, Percy cupped Audrey's cheek with his left hand and pulled her closer. "Happy birthday," he whispered and he kissed her.

Unbeknownst to the couple, Mr. and Mrs. Simmons had begun to return to the cottage only to see Audrey and Percy and choose to remain on the porch.

And Joey had been spying the whole time.


	19. Aberforth

As Yaxley rambled on about his wife (who most _definitely _was having an affair now-the only question was with how many lovers), Alicia through Percy an anxious look and gestured down the hall. Percy didn't understand, but Alicia just stood up, grabbed her things, and hurried out.

Worried, Percy tried to focus on Yaxley when he really just wanted to scream, "Get a divorce already!" and check on Alicia.

"So how about it?"

"How about what?" Percy asked.

"That drink? You're always blowing me off, but today I'm not taking no for an answer," Yaxley stood up. He glanced at Alicia's desk. "Where'd she run off to?"

"Oh, I think she said something about stopping by running something by Health and Safety before heading home," Percy lied easily. What _was _Alicia's job anyway? Everyone dealt with Health and Safety at some point, right?

"Eh. Wanna keep an eye on that one, you will. Nothin' but trouble," Yaxley grumbled putting his coat on. "Mudblood lover that one is."

Percy felt himself clench his fist at the word "mudblood," but said nothing. "I would hardly credit her with anything more than harmless party girl," Percy replied standing up. Changing the subject as quickly as he could, "So a drink?"

"Ha! You're finally coming. I knew I'd wear you down eventually!" he through an arm around Percy's shoulders and Percy tried not to shudder.

"Come on. Aberforth's is always the best place to talk."

XXX

As Yaxley drowned his marital issues in alcohol, Percy kept glancing at the clock. He'd managed to send his Patronous to tell Audrey that he'd be late (he'd found that making a Patronous had been far easier in the past few weeks than it had ever been in his entire life), he knew that she would still worry. Another fun fact about Yaxley: the drunker he got, the less politically correct he became. But what was politically correct nowadays anyway? Soon they would start teaching children that "Mudblood" was correct and "muggle-born" was a dirty word.

"Stinkin' Mudbloods. They're the reason everythin's wrong with th' world. If we'd just git rid of 'em, life would be so much better," Yaxley slurred.

Percy stood up abruptly. At the look on Yaxley's face, he muttered, "Next round's on me."

"See! Tha's good pure-blood breadin'. Offerin' to buy a mana drink. Not sure where it came from though. What wiff yer family bein' the way they are," Yaxley nearly fell out of his chair at that.

Percy waited at the bar and actually let a two other wizards (at least, he _thought_ one of them _looked_ like a wizard) order ahead of him so that he could cool off.

"Another round please," he said when he finally ran out of reasons to stall.

Aberforth grunted at him. "You're too obvious. They're suspicious of everyone these days and you're no exception. Especially with your family."

Percy stared at the barkeeper unsure if this was a trap. "I'm not my family."

"No, you're not. They off hidin' like any sensible person while you're still trying to be one of them," Aberforth gestured in Yaxley's direction.

"You…you haven't heard anything, have you?" Percy asked.

"No, and if I had I wouldn't be caught talking about it in present company."

Percy swallowed. "If you…if you do find anything out…you'll let me know, right?"

Aberforth grunted. "I'll tell you whatever I hear."

XXX

Percy and Yaxley left not long after that. Despite his utter detestation for the man, Percy felt that it would reflect badly on him if he allowed him to Apparate while drunk and get splinched (especially not after so many people had seen them together). After finally figuring out where Yaxley lived (the man was so drunk that Percy could tell whether he'd said "six" or "eight" or "Merlin" or "Mur Lane") Percy Apparated back to the cottage and plopped on the couch as soon as he could.

He groaned.

"I take it your day didn't go well."

"I've had better."


End file.
